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Cold War Polarity in Preservation

Us vs. Them in the Mirror

Depicting current developments in the library preservation field in terms of simple polarity is tempting but misleading. A classic polarity in the preservation field poses either/or choices between preservation of originals and their conversion to alternative media followed by disposal of originals. While the contrasts of such a simple dichotomy are deceptive, so are the slants of expression and terminology used to manufacture the easy explanation, to provoke a false choice and to mask any disconcerting outcomes.

The particular false choice between conversion and retention now has a bit of recent history. This history includes a Nicholson Baker essay on the discard of paper card catalogs (1994) and various arguments and statements advocating the retention of print and manuscript originals following their conversions to film or digital image files. On the other side sweeping expositions such as Commission on Preservation and Access report on Preserving the Illustrated Text (1992) and various publications accentuating the threats of acidic paper and diminishing storage space, pose little alternative to an archival version of bulldozer archeology.

The polarizing false choice between conversion and retention is still with us. If anything it is even more prominent as resistance to microfilming gives way to enthusiasm for digitizing without questioning the underlying false choice. Only lacking is the admission that conversion and retention are both required and both preservation routines must be sustained simultaneously with an alert interest in all their possible tertiary interactions and effects.

Recently, preservation dysfunction was again presented in a critique of newspaper microfilming and discard by Nicholson Baker (2000). Unfortunately the theme of dysfunction in preservation is also projected in the CLIR, (current composite of Commission on Preservation and Access and Council on Library Resources) "Preservation of Research Collections" (1999). The CLIR report is so hedged and couched in corporate speak that it seems to present another too-simple dichotomy of continuity vs. discontinuity of preservation method. This polarity was also projected in "The Mirage of Continuity" (1998). But, as any practioner will tell you the situation is not that simple. The practice of preservation that will span the entire scope of the multiple media will also involve both continuity and discontinuity with previous practice.

Let's pause for a closer consideration of the infiltration of false choice in the practice of library and archive preservation. Using the CLIR Report; "The traditional preservation strategies used in the past to ensure the longevity of intellectual resources are no longer appropriate in the digital environment." (p.6) Does this mean that routines of assessment, preparation for outsourced services, in-house reformatting, security and shelf order marking are obsolete? Does it mean that treatment precepts of non-destructive effect on readability and legibility or precepts of reversability or backward compatibility, needs for condition survey or disaster prevention are obsolete? It can't mean that.

Or in another example of too-simple dichotomy; "Like the ancient Roman god Janus, research libraries in their preservation efforts face in opposite directions at once; they must preserve the legacy of the past in the form of millions of printed volumes, and they must respond to the needs of the future by ensuring the long-term accessibility of digital information in a rapidly changing technical environment." (p.3) Note the link of "past" with "print" and "future" with "digital" when the real relationship is a simultaneous link of all four including especially such links as print with future or digital. Cold war polarity doesn't work, either in the new world order or in web links or in preservation management.

Here is another telling slip; "This report focuses on these libraries' strategies for maintaining access to to scholarly resources in their physical form or in new information formats." It almost seems that "or" must be a typo in place of "and". Again the CLIR report veils a meaning in the MLA "Statement on the significance on the Significance of Primary records". It says; "The 'Statement' arose from the concern that reformatting was endangering the continued availability of the physical artifacts". Have you ever heard of throwing out books styled as "endangering the continued availability of the physical artifacts"? This is an example of the deception needed to sustain false choices.

But wait, Nicholson Baker is using another type of false choice. He uses a broad culture based behavior and characterizes that as a particular malady of the library preservation specialty. Why, he asks, doesn't preservation just do its job! (more on the culture context factor in a great Peter Graham comment.)

Layers of Issues

In the USA we will always prefer the clean copy to the dirty original. This is a wide cultural behavior driven by consumerism. This behavior is not a quirky malady of the preservation field. It is an invisible infrastructure of an entire culture. Viewed from this perspective Nick Baker is not only a burned out, counter culture hippie, but a salesman…using a universal behavior to embarrass a few working stiffs.

The preservation workers know that to assure the continuing role of the source original in the context of enticing, sparkling new replacement technologies, that a complex and adaptive behavior is needed. They realize that enticing, sparkling technologies can also be associated with the preservation of source originals. That approach is particularly apt for preservation of source originals in analog magnetic (video and audio tapes) and magnetic computer media.

The wily preservation worker also knows that the key word in the phrase "continuing role of the source original in the context of enticing, sparkling new replacement technologies" is "continuing". Preservation is a maintenance activity that can easily be subverted to the care of crummy surrogates. On the alert, the wily preservation worker and the canny curator keep the source original to sustain the chain of their irresistible replacements.

For me, the more disturbing aspect of Nicolson Baker's study of dysfunction in transmission of the cultural record arises if the preservation field, caught in zones of cultural compulsion and corporate power, is an agent of its own destruction. This is contended in a London Times Literary Supplement of the Baker expose by H.R.Woudhuysen. Woudhuysen details how much secrecy and deception is required to enable actions that disconsert every library practitioner. Preservation workers know that the Baker/Woudhuysen view is the one that they share, but is not the one that necessarily vindicates their work. This is an ambiguity that will be fun to investigate.

Skewed Backlash (12.12.2000)

Richard Cox has taken a weird course in the discussion of Nick Baker’s work on source originals. He demonstrates that Baker is “wrong” by deconstructing what he has gotten right. Worst of all, it seems to Richard, Baker is an effective writer.

Now what is wrong with Richard’s exposition, in my view, is that the rationale for storage of original newspapers has nothing...these days...to do with (1) a degenerate romantic appeal of the talismanic artifact (2) nothing to do with whether goundwood papers deteriorate beyond accessibility for traditional library circulation and (3) nothing to do with the reformat efficiency of microfilming and (4) nothing to with the selection bottleneck.

This is because (1) digital surrogates are already as romantically appealing as the original because those alluring qualities, except one, are increasingly conveyed in the composite reading mode enabled by networked presentation, (2) because no print sources are ever so deteriorated that they cannot be carefully scanned, (3) because microfilms are, in many cases, source originals themselves with all the issues of legibility and deterioration of the content of the worst newspapers and (4) because the selection bottleneck disappears if the materials are permitted time to select themselves.

You know what I don’t understand? You can store, access and convey content in at least four different reading modes. So why is it not obvious that any of these reading modes may themselves be stored, accessed and conveyed by any of the others? Then why is it not apparent that this kaleidoscope depends on the continuing role of the source original in the context of the differing reading modes. The keyword here is “continuing”. Baker is right.

Follow-up (4.29.2001)

Exchanging hyperbole will get us nowhere. Cox is saying that Baker wants to save everything and Baker saying he only asks that .02 percent of newspapers be archived. (see previous BookNews) Such hyperbolic collision is as futile as its flip contrast of a Baker position that originals should always back up reformatting projects and a Cox position that originals can be discarded following reformatting.

Hyperbole aside, its still counterproductive to debate “Baker; Right or Wrong”. I am not even sure that the most relevant debate over Double Fold should be placed in a preservation context.

In Double Fold, I consider Nicholson to be an ethnographer of a particular culture's approach to the transmission of knowledge. The particular culture is well adapted to consumption of goods and well adapted to prefer new goods to used goods.

Nicholson's position is that during the exchange of goods we became too interested in the process as contrasted with the meaning of the goods. In particular he said that the preservation methods were driven by a presumptive desire for access automation.

An interesting debate could be posed between a pro "artifact" and a pro access automation perspective. But, in my view there is an even more interesting approach that begins with a wacky premise. The wacky premise is that transmission of knowledge depends on the lively and continuous interaction of original and copy. In this approach the preservation field is concerned with the care of physical objects, but is also concerned with the preservation of meaning inherent in the interaction of original and copy.

There are lots of nuts and bolts here. Some are laying around in the recent CLIR draft on the Role of the Artifact. If we accept a premise that the source original has a continuing role in the context of delivery technologies and that a continuing interaction of orignal and copy is fundamental to transmission of knowledge we are then free; (1) to pursue all scenarios of automation and surrogate delivery (2) to advocate the access and not seclusion or discard (3) to invigorate the interaction of copy and original until it does establish the continuing or ongoing role of the original.

90% of infrastructure is invisible. We are still at some distance from admitting that transmission of knowledge IS the lively and continuing interaction of original and copy. Both Cox and Baker specifically do not say any such thing, or does the CLIR Report on the “Role of the Artifact”.

Lets point out a few indicators of this omission in the Richard Cox SAA piece.

“The fundamental weakness of Baker’s argument may be his belief, more implicit than explicit, that everything can be and must be saved in its original state.”

In my reading of Double Fold, the more implicit than explicit message is that really good and complete copies would have diminished criticism of any discard of the originals. This is because Baker’s position does more implicitly than explicitly to understand the interactivity of originals and copies. Richard Cox simply doesn’t say that 2nd generation copies assume the role of originals when ever source material is lost or discarded. This factoid perennially invigorates and cripples transmission cycles. Certainly an archivist knows this much better than a novelist, but it looks like the novelist explored the infrastructure implications.

Also, as mentioned Richard will get nowhere repeating the hyperventilated expression that Baker wants to save "everything". Even a cursory reading of Double Fold confirms that Baker wants to save a very, very small portion of important primary material. Another weak aspect of the Cox response is his repeated criticism that Baker does not understand the distinction between librarian and archivist. How this bears on the debate I am not sure and Richard then forgets to explain the distinction.

Finally, Richard has given up on criticizing Baker for taking advantage of a skill of effective writing. To Richard’s credit, this second Baker response item is well written and engaging. In this aspect Cox does illustrate that we are moving toward consensus. He also suggests that we are moving toward consensus in methods and approaches to preservation. He states that he is now engaging the Baker perspective with a deeper care.

Perhaps the cold war is ending. Even the conspiracy that Cox sees in Double Fold may be compelling a more mutual understanding.

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