Double Fold

I'm slowly working my way through Double Fold, and once again I'm finding myself analyzing the writing style instead of the argument. I *really* dislike Baker's tone- it's so condescending. I should have expected it, since he flat out says in the introduction that he wasn't going to be unbiased about it, but still. The book is making me angry, but for all the wrong reasons- I'm angry at Baker for the way he's presenting his argument rather than being angry at what he wants me to be angry at.

Another thing that bothers me is the two problems that I thought of when I considered his "keep everything no matter what" idea, namely:

1. Where are we supposed to put everything? Trust me, I'm a pack rat, and I love the idea of preserving newspapers for historical purposes, but seriously, WHERE are we going to keep everything? Do we build a bunch of off-site warehouses? If so, how are library patrons supposed to access them? He always seems to skirt around this issue.

2. I've been searching on Google and I can't seem to find anything that supports his insistence that paper doesn't deteriorate as quickly as most people believe. In fact, all I find is more evidence to the contrary. Not to mention, there's a lot of other factors in keeping paper in good condition- mold, insects, exposure to light, handling, etc. Baker immediately pooh-poohs scanning high resolution images of texts as too costly, but keeping it in good condition with all of those factors in mind would be pretty expensive, too, don't you think?

I've also been reading/skimming Understanding Digital Libraries, which is a little dry. Lesk, like Baker, makes good points, but I'm not finding myself entirely sold yet. He's the opposite of Baker- instead of "save EVERYTHING!!!" it's "scan EVERYTHING!!!" and he never seems to acknowledge the other side at all either. However, he does get one bonus point for not being angry about it.

In other news, I spent the weekend at Lake Anna for the Virginia Renaissance Faire. It was a lot of fun, not to mention a little interesting after being submerged in technology from these classes. It would have been nice if the weather had cooperated a bit- it was sweltering on Saturday and raining on Sunday, but what can you do about that? I had a good time listening to raunchy songs and making s'mores, though!