Microform describes films or paper that contain microreproductions. The images are usually reduced at least 25 times their original size.

Microfiche is essentially a photographic negative (or positive) containing many ‘pages’ of information. The information has been scaled down, so the pages of a magazine can fit on something about the size of a postcard.

Microfilm also contains many small pages of information, but the content is contained on a spool, like a roll of film:

The advantage of microform media is that a lot of information can be contained in a much smaller space.

During world war II, the U.S. came up with a system to deliver mail to soldiers overseas, called V-Mail. Letters were written on special V-Mail letterheads, before being photographed and converted to microfilm. Converting the letters to microfilm meant they could ship much less mail - instead of shipping 2000lbs of paper mail, they were shipping 40 lbs of microfilm. After making it across the ocean, the letters were reprinted on photographic paper (still not full scale) and delivered to the soldier.

V-Mail also countered espionage by eliminating the possibility of sending letters with microdots or invisible ink.

A microdot is about the size of a full stop ( . ) but contains information that can be read with a 50x microscope. The photographic technique to produce such small images was developed in the late 1800s, as a way of sending military correspondence by carrier pigeon.

Today microdots are used to mark property, so items can be identified in case of theft. Microdots can be attached with an adhesive, and sometimes the adhesive will fluoresce under UV light so the microdots can be located and the information can be retrieved.

This reminds me of the novelty of the your-name-on-a-grain-of-rice things. Something more interesting though, is pet-microchipping, which is what the piece of electronics on the right of the next image does:

Before I start thinking about electronic tags, I want to think more about the analog nature of microfilm.

This is the first microfilm reader I’ve used in a long time. I can remember my mom using microfilm in the library, and I remember playing with the machine without any real intent, and that’s what I did again last week in the historical documents room of the SF Main library.

The roll of microfilm that I looked at was created in 1975. It was Volume 1-A ‘Blotter of Official Notes’ of the 1846 San Francisco County records. Now it is 2010. The microfilm is 35 years old. The information it contains is over 150 years old (!).

This machine was a canon microprinter 90. It costs about $3000 and weighs 75lbs.

How To Load Microfilm (with one hand):

New York Times 1851

New York Times 2010

Microfilm is amazing, I think, because with one machine it’s possible to read very old and very new material.  There is something very funny about using the microfilm reader, and I think it’s a shame that these machines are usually associated with boring library research.

There are some downsides to the microfilm format. One of the big problems is searching the material. It’s like listening to a cassette tape. If you want to skip ahead to a new track, you press ‘fast forward’ and then wait and wait and wait and then press ‘play’ when you the time fees right. This can be incredibly frustrating, but I also think there’s something very charming in that imprecision.

Computers are also amazing. beyond amazing. But they can barely compair with the tactility of using a microfilm reader. The keyboard and mouse is a powerhouse combination, but something about the controls of the reader are just way more fun. Maybe it’s just the novelty, but having big knobs to turn instead of little keys to press is kind of great, and the sounds of flying through the material so fast and letting the spool spin out of control when you’re finished is the kind of stuff we should pull with us into the future.