Mutilation Shocker!/FYI from S.M.Allen

[Susan Allen <sallen@HOBBES.KZOO.EDU>]

Forwarded message:
>From birch Tue Apr 26 12:28:01 1994
From: Don Birch <birch>
Message-Id: <199404261628.MAA25777@hobbes>
Subject: Mutilation Shocker! (fwd)
To: sallen (Susan Allen)
Date: Tue, 26 Apr 94 12:27:59 EDT
Cc: smithson (Paul Smithson)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]


Susan,

It appears that Nicholson Baker is a member of the Autocat list.

Here is his most recent contribution to the list:
(Note: This is about the case of an Ohio student who ripped a recipe from a
magazine and was seen by the librarian.  The student was editor of the
college paper and wrote an editorial about the incident.  In the editorial
she seemed outraged that the librarians would even think of remonstrating
with her, since it only involved a recipe and was no big deal)





Forwarded message: > To: Multiple recipients of list AUTOCAT
<AUTOCAT@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU> > > We are frankly outraged and revolted by
Lisa Marie Rovito's > temerity.  That ignorant scamp tore an entire page out
of a copy of Gourmet > magazine at Ohio University!  Long may she shed her
crocodile tears, the > shameless hellion.  We will not stand for the
heedless mutilation of library > materials.  Other patrons, future
generations, ought to have the opportunity > to refer freely to that carrot
cake recipe.  She had no right to put her > fleeting personal convenience
over the research requirements or interests of > scholars who may make
unexpected use of that particular text in their > historical or culinary
work now or in the future.  You and I may not be > particularly interested
in the information that page holds--we may think in > fact that there is a
rival recipe in Good Housekeeping that uses uniform > carrot-gratings and is
five times quicker to prepare and cheaper and better > in all ways for
cake-hounds than this backward-looking Gourmet gateau, but > we naturally
respect the right of those who may disagree to read, to ponder, > even to
follow the recipe that interests them.  Ms. Rovito acted with > inexcusable
hostility toward libraries and the patrons who use them, and we > can all
unite in censorious fervor to condemn her arrogant criminality.  The >
disgraceful she-vandal!  And she bragged about it in the student paper, too!
> Fie! > > ...what's that you say?  You say card catalogs are also library >
materials?  And you say that you would like to retain the right--and would >
like to reserve the right on behalf of scholars as yet unborn--to refer to >
frozen card catalogs?  And you think that we ought to feel a similar, if not
> a fiercer, sense of outrage and indignation at the ubiquitous mutilation
of > this important class of library materials--that we ought in fact to
deplore > these acts of grotesque vandalism, which so outstrip the tearing
out of a > single page of a single copy of a popular magazine as to boggle
the > bibliomanic mind?  You say you are astounded to learn that some
libraries do > things like shroud their one-of-a-kind card catalogs in black
garbage-bag > "bunting," read them their last rites, and jubilantly ruin
them?  You point > out that this is self-evidently a form of bragging, too?
You hold that, as > in the case of competing formulae for carrot cake, it is
the height of > narrow-minded and parochial arrogance for any one of us to
presume to > decide, just because we aren't personally interested in the
stores of local > information that are being lost in retrospective
conversions, that this > information is universally uninteresting, for all
time, in all contexts, and > that the cards can safely go straight to the
pulpery?  Say that again?  You > contend that anyone who throws out a frozen
card catalog ought to hail young > Lisa Marie Rovito as friend and mentor? >
> Heresy!  How dare you turn our indignation back on us!  You, you, >
Luddite!  You Flat-Earther!  You misty-eyed nostalgist!  You vile >
Pornographer!  My God, you aren't even a librarian! > > Nicholson Baker >

----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Don Birch
 Upjohn Library
 Kalamazoo College
 E-mail: birch@kzoo.edu
----------------------------------------------------------------------