Bill Blackbeard - Double Fold

Double Fold

It was Blackbeard who told Nicholson Baker about "fraudulent" studies used by libraries to justify their massive destruction of books and newspapers, information documented by Baker in his book Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper (2001), a National Book Critics Circle Award Winner. Baker, who devoted the preface of that book to his discussions with Blackbeard, later commented:

The thing about Blackbeard—he is like so many collectors in that he saved something terribly important, but he was single-minded: he saved things with a razor. He had no interest in the women’s sections, in the magazine sections, in the beautiful photographs that had nothing to do with comics.

According to Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum curator Jenny E. Robb, Blackbeard left bound volumes intact in later years.