Microform
A microform is a scaled-down reproduction of a document, typically either photographic film or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing.
He subsequently removed the collodion film from the glass base and rolled it tightly into a cylindrical shape which he then inserted into miniature tubes that were transported fastened to the tail feathers of the pigeons.
The prints were on photographic paper and did not exceed 40 mm, to permit insertion in a goose-quill or thin metal tube,[7] which protected against the elements.
[9] In 1906, Paul Otlet and Robert Goldschmidt proposed the livre microphotographique as a way to alleviate the cost and space limitations imposed by the codex format.
In 1925, the team spoke of a massive library where each volume existed as master negatives and positives, and where items were printed on demand for interested patrons.
New York City banker George McCarthy was issued a patent in 1925 for his "Checkograph" machine, designed to make micrographic copies of cancelled checks for permanent storage by financial institutions.
In 1928, the Eastman Kodak Company bought McCarthy's invention and began marketing check microfilming devices under its "Recordak" division.
[12] Between 1927 and 1935, the Library of Congress microfilmed more than three million pages of books and manuscripts in the British Library;[13] in 1929 the Social Science Research Council and the American Council of Learned Societies joined to create a Joint Committee on Materials for Research, chaired for most of its existence by Robert C. Binkley, which looked closely at microform's potential to serve small print runs of academic or technical materials.
[12] This method of information storage received the sanction of the American Library Association at its annual meeting in 1936, when it officially endorsed microforms.
[12] For the next half century, UMI would dominate the field, filming and distributing microfilm editions of current and past publications and academic dissertations.
For example, when airlines demand archival engineering drawings to support purchased equipment (in case the vendor goes out of business, for example), they normally specify punch-card-mounted microfilm with an industry-standard indexing system punched into the card.
Aperture card mounted microfilm is roughly 3% of the size and space of conventional paper or vellum engineering drawings.
Some military contracts around 1980 began to specify digital storage of engineering and maintenance data because the expenses were even lower than microfilm, but these programs are now finding it difficult to purchase new readers for the old formats.
The systems worked by photographing large amounts of censored mail reduced to thumb-nail size onto reels of microfilm, which weighed much less than the originals would have.
The film reels were shipped by priority air freight to and from the home fronts, sent to their prescribed destinations for enlarging at receiving stations near the recipients, and printed out on lightweight photo paper.
An additional benefit was that the small, lightweight reels of microfilm were almost always transported by air, and as such were delivered much more quickly than any surface mail service could have managed.
In 1948, the Australian Joint Copying Project started; the intention to film records and archives from the United Kingdom relating to Australia and the Pacific.
[citation needed] The medium has numerous characteristics: Desktop readers are boxes with a translucent screen at the front on to which is projected an image from a microform.
A 35 mm microfilm chip is mounted in the hole inside of a clear plastic sleeve or secured over the aperture with adhesive tape.
Microfiches are stored in open-top envelopes, which are put in drawers or boxes as file cards or fitted into pockets in purpose-made books.
Ultrafiche (also "ultramicrofiche") is an exceptionally compact version of a microfiche or microfilm, storing analog data at much higher densities.
[25] Redox blemishes are yellow, orange or red spots 15–150 micrometres in diameter created by oxidative attacks on the film, and are largely due to poor storage conditions.
The operator maintains a stack of material to be filmed in a tray, the camera automatically takes one document after another for advancement through the machine.
[35] One site using the Komstar 200 was The Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, which printed around 190,000 frames of data per month; it reported immediate cost savings of 33 percent as well as improved ease of operation and space utilization.
[29] An industry survey published by Infosystems magazine in 1981 indicated that around half of all corporate data processing departments were using COM, with most of those making use of a service bureau rather than doing it in-house.
Hand copying of a single fiche or aperture card involves exposure over a light box and then individually processing the film.
A bench top device is available that enables an operator to cut exposed frames of roll film and fit these into ready made aperture cards.
Other microfilm reels will have a 'blip' system: small marks next to the images of varying lengths used to indicate document hierarchy (longest: root, long: branch, short: leaf).
Common issues that affect the accuracy of OCR applied to scanned images of microfilm include unusual fonts, faded printing, shaded backgrounds, fragmented letters, skewed text, curved lines and bleed through on the originals.
[43] For film types with no distinguishing marks, or when OCR is impossible (handwriting, layout issues, degraded text), the data must be entered in manually, a very time-consuming process.
