A microfilm reader is a device used in projecting and magnifying images stored in microform to readable proportions.
Microform includes flat film, microfilm, aperture cards, microfiche, and ultra fiche.
However, Dargon sought to corner the market, and in 1861 he brought suit against a French inventor Martinache, charging invasion of patent.
The entire assembly was then placed in a grinding jig which transformed the flat end-plates into convex lenses, each focused on the image borne by the opposite plate.
By the end of the 19th century, a few libraries began to implement microfilm as a means of preserving records.
A 1904 fire in the National Library of Turin that destroyed more than half the manuscripts stored there raised concerns of preservation of unique and rare materials.
In 1956, UNESCO set up a special microfilm unit with the intention of visiting various countries to micro film books, documents, and other cultural material in danger of being destroyed and those which are irreplaceable.
In modern translucent microfilm readers, light is projected into a film producing an enlarged image of the film on a translucent screen, and in opaque readers the same process occurs except the image in on an opaque screen.
A United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization report discussed the issues surrounding the implementation of microfilm internationally.