Karen's Reviews > A Splendor of Letters: The Permanence of Books in an Impermanent World

There is nothing more poignant and mysterious than talk of lost books and lost libraries. This book is replete with descriptions of books and libraries that we merely know about now, but no longer have. Nicholas Basbanes describes well the many ways in which books and libraries are lost to humanity, including natural disaster, political strife, diabolical maliciousness, limited shelf space, and insidious negligence. Mr. Basbanes also describes the serendipity associated with the continuing existence of some ancient records. His discussion of palimpsests is utterly fascinating. I was enthralled with most of this book. I admit to being less interested in the closing chapters that discuss the future of the book, or rather ebook. However, I enjoyed his description of various modern efforts to preserve books.

Surprisingly, when discussing record preservation efforts, he left out any mention of the vast holdings of the Mormon Church, safeguarded in the Granite Mountain Records Vault in the mountains near Salt Lake City, and the church's efforts to offer digital copies of its holdings to the public on familysearch.org. The vault preserves almost 2.4 million microfilms and nearly 1 million microfiche acquired over the decades. That represents more than 3 billion pages of family history records, the largest collection of its kind in the world. I've read on ancestry.com that the Granite Mountain Records Vault is currently processing tens of thousands of microfilm masters owned by the National Archives, including federal census and immigration records. The project is remastering the original acetate-based microfilms, creating new polyester-based replacements for the National Archives, and extending the longevity of the federal government’s records collection. See http://www.ancestry.com/learn/library...