Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper by Nicholson
Baker New York: Vintage, 2001. Three things I did not know
before reading Double Fold: 1: The idea that the acidity in wood
pulp paper will turn books into dust is hyperbole. The paper may
yellow, the bindings may be very fragile, and a very, very small
percentage of paper may crumble if you scrunch it up into a ball
(when was the last time you scrunched a page of a book you were
reading or using at the library into a ball?), but it will not
turn to dust. Your dead tree books are safe. 2. In the 1850s,
paper was made from rags, and there was a global rag shortage.
The New York Tribune and Sun both reduced their size in response
to the increasing cost of paper. Dr. Isaiah Deck, an American
geologist, proposed a novel solution: unearth the millions of
mummies in Egypt, unwind them from their winding cloths and ship
the linen to America. And they did. On July 31, 1856, the
Syracuse Daily Standard printed this: “Rags from Egypt.–Our
Daily is now printed