Astral Codex Ten

Double Fold

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Double Fold

Article

Double Fold is a recurring book in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 4 times across 4 issues between April 30, 2021 and July 12, 2021. The archive places it in contexts such as “When Double Fold by Nicholson Baker came out in 2001”; “Double Fold is little-known among the general public”; “The story of Double Fold might be said to begin in the 1930s with the advent of microfilming”. It most often appears alongside Addiction By Design, Down and Out in Paris and London, How Children Fail.

Metadata

  • Category: Books
  • Mention count: 4
  • Issue count: 4
  • First seen: April 30, 2021
  • Last seen: July 12, 2021

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Your Book Review: Double Fold
April 30, 2021 · Original source
When Double Fold by Nicholson Baker came out in 2001, it was described as The Jungle of the American library system. After 20 years, the book remains universally known, sometimes admired but often despised, among librarians. The reason for their belligerence is that Baker publicly revealed a decades-long policy of destruction of primary materials from the 19th and 20th centuries, based on a pseudoscientific notion that books on wood-pulp paper are quickly turning to dust, coupled with a misguided futuristic desire to do away with outdated paper-based media. As a consequence, perfectly well preserved books with centuries of life still ahead of them were hastily replaced with an inferior medium which has, at the moment that I am writing this review, already mostly gone the way of the dodo. Despite its notoriety among librarians, however, Double Fold is little-known among the general public, even compared to Baker’s other non-fiction and his novels.
The story of Double Fold might be said to begin in the 1930s with the advent of microfilming. The idea of photographing documents to make them more portable had been around at least since the 1870s, but it took 60 more years until microfilm technology was sufficiently advanced to become attractive for libraries. The basic idea was simple: you took pictures of every page of a book, put them together into a roll of film stored in a small box, and when someone wanted to “read” the book, they put the film into a large TV-like device that magnified the image onto a screen, with a pair of buttons that you could use to navigate left and right.
Rebecca Rego Barry was one of the researchers who benefited from a treasure trove of newspapers that had been saved from dispersal by Baker immediately before Double Fold was published. She used them to sift through a decade’s worth of Herald Tribune, searching for articles written by a columnist whom she was analyzing for her thesis. “Could the articles be found on microfilm? Theoretically they could, with another year and an extra set of eyes, if whoever had microfilmed it had done a decent job in the first place.”
Inline links: one of the researchers
Vote In The Book Review Contest!
June 18, 2021 · Original source
1: Order Without Law 2: On The Natural Faculties 3: Progress And Poverty 4: Are We Smart Enough To Know How Smart Animals Are? 5: Why Buddhism Is True 6: Double Fold 7: The Wizard And The Prophet 8: Through The Eye Of A Needle 9: The Years Of Lyndon Johnson 10: Addiction By Design 11: The Accidental Superpower 12: Humankind 13: The Collapse Of Complex Societies 14: Where’s My Flying Car? 15: Down And Out In Paris And London 16: How Children Fail 17: Plagues And Peoples
Inline links: Order Without Law, On The Natural Faculties, Progress And Poverty, Are We Smart Enough To Know How Smart Animals Are?, Why Buddhism Is True, Double Fold, The Wizard And The Prophet, Through The Eye Of A Needle, The Years Of Lyndon Johnson, Addiction By Design, The Accidental Superpower, Humankind, The Collapse Of Complex Societies, Where’s My Flying Car?, Down And Out In Paris And London, How Children Fail, Plagues And Peoples
Book Review Contest: Winners
July 10, 2021 · Original source
Order Without Law, reviewed by Phil Hazelden Are We Smart Enough To Know How Smart Animals Are, reviewed by Jeff Russell Why Buddhism Is True, reviewed by Eve Bigaj Double Fold, reviewed by Boštjan P The Wizard And The Prophet, reviewed by Maryana Through The Eye Of A Needle, reviewed by Tom Powell Years Of Lyndon Johnson, reviewed by Theodore Ehrenborg Addiction By Design, reviewed by Ketchup Duck The Accidental Superpower, reviewed by Jon Boguth Humankind, reviewed by Neil Roques The Collapse Of Complex Societies, reviewed by Etirabys Where's My Flying Car, reviewed by Jonathan P How Children Fail, reviewed by HonoreDB Plagues And Peoples, reviewed by Joel Ferris (who is looking for a job, email here)
Inline links: Order Without Law, Phil Hazelden, Are We Smart Enough To Know How Smart Animals Are, Jeff Russell, Why Buddhism Is True, Eve Bigaj, Double Fold, Boštjan P, The Wizard And The Prophet, Through The Eye Of A Needle, Years Of Lyndon Johnson, Addiction By Design, The Accidental Superpower, Humankind, The Collapse Of Complex Societies, Etirabys, Where's My Flying Car, How Children Fail, Plagues And Peoples, here
Open Thread 180
July 12, 2021 · Original source
3: I didn’t know this when writing the Book Review Winners post, but Boštjan, who wrote the review of Double Fold, has a whole blog about book-preservation-related issues, The Fate Of Books. If you enjoyed the review, consider checking it out. And although I’m posting this one in particular here because I missed it, also check out the blogs of the various other winners and finalists, which are posted on the thread.
Inline links: Book Review Winners, the review of, The Fate Of Books