Chapter Twelve -- Really Wicked Stuff and Chapter Thirteen -- Getting the Champagne out of the Bottle

In some ways I disagree with some of what Baker's saying here. I think he gives a lot of information on the background of diethyl zinc -- especially the information on the military uses -- because he wants to frighten the reader. My counterargument is that, hey, you have to try things. Otherwise you don't know if they'll work. I do, however, think that after the first incident with fire, the whole thing should have been called off. I understand that some people thought that their reputations were too valuable to do that, though. Also, don't get me started on the Bookkeeper bath. I HATE the texture of that grain it leaves on pages. I'd rather the pages be brittle than leave my hands feeling like I dunked them in a container of talc all day.

Chapter Fourteen -- Bursting at the Seams

It's surprising to me that Baker is in favor of off-site storage. I think it's a good idea, but you run into a whole host of other problems when you're talking real estate. Sure, it's cheap now to make or rent a large warehouse way out in the boondocks. But what happens to the costs of the building as suburban sprawl makes the land more valuable? I would imagine that the library then comes under pressure to give up the land to developers. It's hard to say what actually happens, because Baker doesn't discuss how communities feel about off-site storage, and what pressures libraries feel about existing infrastructure that is now getting surrounded by other type of land uses. I'd like to hear more on that, so I guess I'll be looking for articles on that when I get a chance.

Chapter Sixteen -- It's Not Working Out

I have to confess, I have worked with laminated materials in libraries. Laminated in the sense of "encased in plastic," but not irretrievably so. I worked with several maps that had clear, flat plastic cases that were hard, but not impossible, to open. But what would Baker have us do? If a map (or other document) is already damaged, it's not safe to put in a normal case, even in an area where there is access restriction. Actually, I digitized these maps. But they were not then, and will not be in the future, tossed out. It was seen as a way to reduce demand for the actual physical object, as well as to provide the object in a different format for different uses (for display on a website, for example). I think Baker doesn't take into account that there are other motivations for doing things like lamination and digitalization. I feel slighted and maligned, even though I don't feel that I have done anything wrong, specifically because Baker tends to group all digitization and preservation efforts together, when there are a multitude of uses for and people doing this work.

Chapter Seventeen -- Double Fold

I am completely baffled by this double fold test, and why anyone thought it would be an accurate depiction of use. The use of tugs bother me even more; who are these users who are bending corners back and forth and then pulling on the corner? This seems like an attempt to purposely declare books fragile, even when they clearly aren't. Another issue is standards; why, if we're going to use this test, are we not saying, "it's one double fold, and that's it?" At least have things organized! Is it possible that librarians were setting more Draconian rules so that their statistics would match what other libraries were coming up with? This is one of Baker's big points, I think; that librarians, for all their intellectual grandstanding, are just as capable of behaving like sheep and not exhibiting true independent thought. And I think that's true; we're people, and are fallible.