Do Not Fold, Spindle, or Mutilate: Double Fold and the Assault on Libraries

Abstract

someone had told librarians and archivists a year ago that they and their work would be the subject of a best-selling book, displayed on the front tables at Barnes and Noble or Borders, given valuable column inches in the New York Review of Books and the New York Times Book Review, the author appearing on C-Span and National Public Radio and lecturing to packed houses across the country if someone had told librarians and archivists all that, they probably would have thought that they had died and gone to heaven. For decades, members of these information professions complained that the general public had a poor understanding of what they did and why it was important. Stories of public confusion and innocent insult were legion: American Libraries ran a regular feature highlighting the latest laughable stereotype; the mistaking of archivists for anarchists became a recurring theme of talk in the bar at professional meetings, a kind of never-ending game of can you top this? Wouldn't it be wonderful, these misunderstood and underappreciated professionals thought, if someone came along who could really make their case to the public at large? And who better for the job than a self-professed lover of libraries?