Double Fold from an Archivists’ Perspective

In reaction to Double Fold, Richard Cox, a well known archivist within the archival community wrote Vandals in the Stacks?. Cox breaks down Baker’s argument point by point from an archivists’ perspective. The following comments are from Cox’s chapter “Why Can’t the Paper Keepers Keep all the Paper?”. This chapter addresses Baker’s claim that all newspapers should be saved in their original format. Cox discusses that this is impossible to do for a number of reasons.
1. It is impossible to save every newspaper since big city newspapers publish multiple editions daily and libraries often only receive one edition.
2. Archivists do not have the resources to save every newspaper despite what Baker says.
3. Newspapers were never meant to last forever. The quality of paper that newspapers are published on will deteriorate. According to Cox, Baker’s comments about newspapers not deteriorating have little true basis.
Bottom line is that archivists, like librarians, need to make choices about selection. Given the choice, an archivist is going to choose saving correspondence of an important literary figure over a newspaper. So the alternative is microfilming newspapers.

Some Questions to think about:
What do you think about Baker’s idea of saving everything? Do you agree with Richard Cox’s view or more with Baker’s?
Is microfilming of newspaper all evil as Baker suggests?