llect and,
The early indifference of the library to the preservation of
newspaper files and of the press to the preservation of its own files has often caused embarrassment to the historian, as has
the wanton , or necessary , destruction of files that have been carefully collected and preserved . Jerdan , writing about 1850, exclaimed, “ I do not think there is one perfect set of a London newspaper in the National Repository ! . . . Of provincial jour nals there are only few irregular fragments.” 72 Applications at newspaper offices for permission to consult their files have been granted , only to find that their files are incomplete. A
complete set of Godey's Ladies' Book was somewhat recently
destroyed because its owner regarded the contents as " frivolous," and a box of jams and jellies was recently sent North , - wrapped respecters of libraries or of presses and the recent war has been no exception .73 if possible, preserve. Our American newspapers were offenders in this direction before the war, and war conditions have led to a further deteriora tion in quality . The samemay be said of foreign journals , where the reduc
tion in size has not compensated for the increasing difficulties in obtaining
paper. The mere statement of the situation measures its acuteness and the obstacles to betterment . To the ordinary reader so much of the daily sheets seems unnecessary , the pages of advertisements, the discussions by the in
expert and the local items of small note gathered from the world as news. If only the vital parts of the journal could be concentrated upon two or three pages, and not strung over pages, broken and buried by the advertise
ments or other necessities of the " make -up .”
Such pages mounted on
manila paper would outlive the ordinary usage of a century ; but who would
undertake to select the matter to be thus preserved ? Who could have the
time, the patience and intelligence? To reinforce the newspaper with crêpe line would be too costly and unsatisfactory . Perhaps the photostat offers a remedy, for the essential parts could be reproduced by it and on a paper
which still uses a percentage of rag high enough to make it lasting. It is useless to ask the newspaper publishers to improve the quality of print
paper; that quality is fixed by conditions beyond their control. The prob lem is one for this Society and its fellow societies, and we cannot pretend to be able even to suggest as yet a positive solution .”
See also H . M . Lydenberg, “ Saving the Newspaper Files for Posterity," New York Evening Post,April 2 , 1921,and New York Times, August 12, 1921; C . Hemstreet, “ The Times War News,” New York Times, August 13, 1921.
72 William Jerdan , Autobiography, Í, 156 –157 . 73 A tragic result of revolution was the destruction , when the Russians entered Tabriz in December, 1911, of a unique collection of files of Persian
newspapers and magazines that the owner had been collecting during four teen years, - necessarily destroyed by his family during the “ Reign of Terror under which no one suspected of sympathy with Liberal ideas was
safe.” — E . G . Browne, The Press and Poetry of Modern Persia , pp. 1 - 2.
