n.high-resolution film used to hold highly reduced photographic images of documents and printed materials, especially when stored on reelsDavis 1937, 230One of the newer and most promising tools of documentation is the microfilm. Compact, to an extraordinary degree, promising to outlast our omnipresent paper, and capable of reproducing anything the eye can see, even in natural colors, microfilms promise to hurdle some of the present barriers to easy and effective interchange of intelligence in many fields.Hale 1959, 11During the past year the compilers of the projected “Guide to Photocopied Historical Materials in the United States and Canada” have had unusual opportunities to see how microfilms are handled in the United States and Canada.Lake 1961, 306This microfilm is to be forwarded to the Archives in accordance with the schedule, and reference service for all the material is to be provided by the Archives.Lee 1965, 362–363The scanning of microfilm, even with the assistance of electric-powered devices to relieve handcranking, remains slow and difficult; the use of microfilmed indexes to microfilmed documents, exasperating.Winn 1974, 379They alert him to this policy through instructions for use of the collection, registration forms, photocopy request forms, various permission forms, and at the beginning of each reel of microfilm prepared for him.Poole 1977, 166–167In these cases many libraries and archives routinely resort to microfilming as a means of preserving the intellectual content of those books and documents too fragile to be used without damage, or as a means of protecting valuable materials against the wear and tear of excessive handling.Jones 1980, 65Beginning in the 1940s microfilm was introduced to many county officials when the Genealogical Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, with the approval of state archivists, inaugurated a program of microfilming, in the county courthouses, selected records of genealogical interest.Hendriks 1986, 179Microfilm in general belongs to the generic group known as silver gelatin photographic records. These records comprise by far the largest number of photographic materials in existence.Conway 1990, 220One important preservation strategy for archivists is reformatting deteriorated collections on microfilm.Stout 2002, 14Just as we learned with microfilm, mediating access through technology does not save the archives any work—collections must still be processed and described, and then, in addition, converted to another format, in this case, digitized.a physical piece of microfilm, especially after processing the filmDowd 1953, 242–243The microfilms made available by the Library of Congress through the activities of our committee will remain our basic tools for a long time to come.Shelley 1962, 431Each of our microfilms includes a title page, a general statement by the Librarian of Congress, a detailed description of the particular President’s papers, and a list of the sources from which the manuscripts were acquired.Cunha, Frazer, and Walton 1977, 322Third, priority might well be given to a national survey to determine the condition of important archival collections and to investigate the feasibility of a program to undertake the microfilming of collections of significant national importance and to develop plans for a national archives collection where both microfilms of such materials and, ultimately, original materials would be housed under ideal conditions for their long-range preservation and physical protection.Hendriks and Lesser 1983, 53Our study deliberately did not include motion picture films or microfilms. There is a fundamental physical difference between these materials and historical still photographs.Bastian 2009, 127Its collection of specific Homestead records is sparse but includes microfilms of censuses and other relevant public records of the period, some records of Carnegie Steel, as well as records specifically relating to the Homestead Strike.
Notes
Microfilm1 may appear in rolls (on reels), sheets (as microfiche or ultrafiche), strips (usually in jackets), or frames (usually in aperture cards). Microfilm may use silver gelatin, diazo, or vesicular processes to form the images. Standard widths of roll film are 16mm and 35mm.
