Samantha OddiSpring 2010H72.3049FinalMicroforms: Where They Come From and How They Are ExperiencedIn the Information Age it can be difficult to comprehend that there is data that cannot be accessed from a computer. Serial publications especially are assumedto be available instantly and electronically by many students – in this, the JSTOR and Google Books era. There is a wealth of information available in the microform collections of university and major libraries around the world. Both rare books and popular national daily newspapers can be found on microform, along with a wide variety of publications on any number of subjects. Over the decades microforms have been the source of novelty, preservation, controversy, and neglect. The history of microforms is relatively short compared to paper-based media and ensuring a positive user experience requires a bit more work. Despite its changes in status, microforms are invaluable repositories of world history and they are still important to library collections.The first known microforms were created by John Benjamin Dancer, an English scientist, in 1839. He created and began selling novelty texts and photographs so small that they were meant to be read with a microscope in 1953. Six years later a French optician named Rene Dagron patented microfilm and went into business.1 Later, during the Franco-Prussian War Dagron’s microfilms were 1 Shontz, Marilyn L. "Microforms." Nonbook Media. American Library Association, 1987. 140-41. Print.used to send French messages across enemy lines tied to the feet of carrier pigeons.2 With the new century came new uses for microform technology. By the early 1930’s microfilm machines were in use in hundreds of banks across the United States and The New York Times was being published on microfilm as well as traditional newsprint. Harvard started using microform as a preservation medium in 1938 when the University discovered that their collection of foreign newspapers were rapidly deteriorating and that increased storage was unlikely.3 The project has continued for decades. As with many industries, World War II slowed the development of microforms, but the new uses for the medium were still found. Microfilm was often used to send military mail overseas as well as espionage, as evidenced most famously in the so called “pumpkin papers” during the Alger Hiss trial. 4 After the war expanded budgets in libraries led to increased microform collections, not just in preservation but also in “active information systems.”5 The creation of computer output microform (COM) systems in the 1970’s allowed for increased production of a greater range of items, such as catalogs, telephone listings, and as many types of records as the mind could imagine.6 The rises of electronic publishing and digitization have put something of a damper on the status of microform as the 2 Daavid, Joel. "The Pigeon Post into Paris 1870-1871." The History of Microfilm: 1893to the Present. UC Southern Regional Library Facility. Web. 14 Apr. 2010. < http://www.srlf.ucla.edu/exhibit/text/hist_page4.htm>.3 Shontz, 141.4 Ibid.5 Daavid, Joel. “Microfilm – A Brief History.” The History of Microfilm: 1893 to the Present. UC Southern Regional Library Facility. Web. 14 Apr. 2010. <http://www.srlf.ucla.edu/exhibit/text/BriefHistory.htm>6 Shontz, 142.medium of easy access and infinite information for libraries, but microform materials are still essential sections of any institution.Microforms are traditionally produced through either microphotography, which photographs text with a stationary camera or one that continually moves the material with shooting, or by computer output. Printing with contact exposure for most transparent microforms, though there are three main types of film: silver halide, diazo, and vesicular. Silver halide film is considered permanent and its processing is like that of regular black and white photographic film. The silver halide in a gelatin layer is exposed to light, processed, and a negative image is created. Diazo film is less expensive and quicker than silver halide, though it is a dyeprocess using ammonia and diazonium salts. Unlike silver halide it creates a positiveimage. Newer vesicular film uses diazo sensitized film that is processed through the application of heat.7 Microforms were made primarily with acetate-based film until the 1980’s when production was switched to polyester, which is more stable.Like other roll and sheet films, microforms require special storage facilities toprevent chemical decay and damage from dust and the elements. Climate control is absolutely necessary. Temperatures should remain between 68 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit, with relative humidity between 40 and 50% and good air circulation. Materials should be protected from sun and fluorescent light in plastic or acid-free paper containers within metal cabinets. Materials should also be stored upright andalways handled with care.87 Shontz, 156.8 Shontz, 147-48.A positive user experience can require procedures as specific as handling andstorage of microforms. In a 2004 article for The Moving Image, scholar Stephan Bottomore addressed a number of practical concerns that inhibit effective use of microforms, even at some of the best libraries in the world. The British Library keeps their microfilm readers in the same space as their regular reading room, which imposes restrictions on the materials a user can bring into the space and features overly bright lighting for machines that use backlighting.9 The Bibliothèquenationale de France not only over lights their microform reading areas (some are stationed until large windows), but there are no reader/printers at the library. Users are forced to take their materials to a specific photocopying room, cue up the desired section of a reel of microfilm, and explain which part they would like to be copied to an employee.10 The layout of a microform reading area, the lighting, and the degree of independence afforded to the researcher all factor in to the type of experience a user takes away from a library.The deciding factor, however, is the microform machine itself. Scholarly reviews of library services feature complaints about equipment in seemingly every mention of microform departments. “Microform machines that do not work properly thwart and frustrate library users…[and] it is common knowledge that mechanical problems can define a user’s