The Death of Microfilm [not if the original agreements do not allow the film to be digitized (reproduced)!]
Genealogists
love microfilm. Visit any genealogy library anywhere, and you will see
genealogists in darkened rooms, hunched over microfilm viewers, trying
to solve the puzzles of their family trees. I have taken several
pictures of genealogists sitting at rows of microfilm readers. However, I
suspect that within ten years those pictures will become collectors’
items, recalling an era that exists only as distant memories in the
minds of “the old-timers.” You see, microfilm and microfiche are about
to disappear.
Many of the manufacturers of microfilm and microfiche equipment have
already disappeared or else have switched their production lines to
other products.
The problem is economics: microfilm is
expensive. Those who wish to preserve data find it faster, easier, and
cheaper to scan documents on computer scanners and then make the
information available as disk images than it is to do the same thing on
microfilm. Hospitals, insurance companies, government agencies, and
others have already made the switch from microfilm to digital imaging.
Genealogists are among the very few still using microfilm and even that
number is dropping rapidly.
The demand for microfilm and microfiche equipment is dwindling.
Without demand, manufacturers no longer can afford to manufacture the
necessary equipment. Microfilm cameras and viewers are becoming as
uncommon as buggy whips.
Microfilm cameras are almost impossible to purchase today, except
perhaps for used units on eBay or at some garage sale. Twenty years ago,
Bell and Howell manufactured thousands of microfilm cameras each year.
Ten years ago, production had dropped to hundreds per year. Since then,
the company has ceased manufacturing microfilm cameras and dropped them
from the product catalog, all because of decreasing sales. Most of Bell
and Howell’s competitors have also stopped manufacturing microfilm and
microfiche equipment.
Without cameras, no one is going to be producing new microfilms. We
genealogists are going to be limited to the microfilms that were filmed
years ago. However, this assumes that microfilm copying equipment is
still available. The fact is that even that even microfilm duplication
equipment is disappearing. The duplication equipment already in place
requires maintenance and occasional spare parts. Those parts are rapidly
becoming unavailable.
Of course, in order to make copies, you also must be able to purchase
rolls of unexposed film. I am told that supplies of new film is also
disappearing as demand drops. All the major manufacturers of microfilm
have dropped out of that business although a few specialty manufacturers
still sell new microfilm. Prices for unexposed rolls of microfilm are
now four times the price of a few years ago, or higher.
Within a decade, it will be difficult or perhaps impossible to obtain
a copy of an old microfilm, even to replace a worn-out copy of a
microfilm you already own. Nobody will have the equipment or the rolls
of unexposed film with which to make copies!
In addition, making a copy of a microfilm introduces fuzziness, or
what the engineers call “visual noise.” Then, making a copy of that copy
introduces further loss of image; copying that copy adds still more,
and so on and so forth. However, a copy of a digital image is identical
to the original. You can make copies of copies of copies of digital
images, and each new image is identical to the original with no signal
loss. Making and copying digital images is faster, more cost-effective,
and easier than doing the same with microfilm.
For years, genealogists have proclaimed that digital images will
never replace microfilm because “the media (computer disks, tapes, etc.)
doesn’t last long.” CD-ROM disks last only 25 years or so. Floppies
don’t even last that long.
The genealogists who make those claims are ignoring one very simple
and cost-effective solution: copy the images to new, fresh media every
few years. Remember that each digital copy is identical to the original,
unlike microfilm. A digital copy of a copy of a copy is still as good
as the original.
With images stored on disk, it is almost trivial to copy the images
to new disks periodically. If technology changes, such as DVD disks
replacing CD disks or Blu-ray disks replacing DVD disks, the old images
are simply copied to new media. If file formats change, the old formats
are easily converted to whatever new formats become popular.
With that process in place, the life expectancy of digital images
becomes almost infinite. In fact, any well-managed data center already
makes backup copies on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. If the images
are available online, they are already being copied regularly to (new)
backup copies. Who cares about the life expectancy of the original disks
when you always have a fresh copy on a new disk?
Any archive charged with storing a collection of images will find the
periodic copying of digital images to be much cheaper than trying to
maintain a large collection of microfilm images. In short, digital
imaging ensures that future generations can have the same access that
you and I enjoy, something not possible with microfilms.
The next equipment to disappear will be microfilm viewers.
Go to any large genealogy library today, and you will still see rows
of microfilm viewers. I hope those libraries take good care of them. Ten
or twenty years ago several major companies produced microfilm and
microfiche viewers. Several small companies still manufacture viewers
today although most of the “big names” in the business have dropped out.
The small specialty manufacturers of today cannot depend on
genealogists alone for future sales. Sooner or later, they will also
drop out as their customer base disappears. I am guessing that you will
not be able to purchase a new microfilm viewer ten years from now. Even
worse, you won’t even be able to purchase spare parts for the worn-out
units your library already owns.
Within the genealogy world, FamilySearch, an arm of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons), has traditionally been
the biggest user of microfilm equipment. With this huge investment
already made in microfilm, you might expect the LDS Church to continue
using microfilm forever. That’s not true, according to numerous
announcements made in recent years. FamilySearch is already moving away
from microfilm, replacing it as fast as possible with digital images,
mostly made from the old microfilms.
The printed books in the Family History Library in Salt Lake City are
also being copied to digital images whenever copyright agreements with
the authors allow. The result is that many more books are now available
(by looking on computer screens) than ever before. The Library simply
isn’t big enough to store all the printed copies but storage space is
almost a non-issue with digital versions. Even better, the books may be
viewed by patrons many thousands of miles away, again where copyright
agreements allow.
To be sure, the LDS Church still owns quite few microfilm cameras but
no longer uses them to film old records at various locations around the
world. Nobody has been able to purchase new cameras for years. The
units that were in use kept wearing out, and the original manufacturers
no longer sell spare parts. For a while the Mormon Church even
contracted with small machine shops to make spare parts for the cameras,
but that soon became cost-ineffective.
The LDS Church has now moved to digital imaging. The focus has
shifted from microfilm to making digital images on site – in the
original repositories – with no microfilm involved. The acquisition
teams use a laptop PC and a scanner in much the same manner as you and I
do at home, although the scanner is more sophisticated and ruggedized
than the typical unit sold to consumers.
A separate activity involves the conversion of the millions of reels
of existing microfilm created over the years by the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints to digital images. That effort has been
underway for several years.
To be sure, millions of rolls of microfilm already exist, and they
will not disappear overnight. We will continue to see microfilm readers
in libraries for several more years. However, as new microfilms become
unavailable, replacements of existing microfilms also become
unavailable. As the reels of microfilm become scratched from use,
replacements will not be available. As the microfilm viewers wear out
and replacements are no longer available, the result will be inevitable.
Luckily, digital images are faster, more cost-effective, cheaper, and
more practical. With periodic copying, digital images have infinite
“shelf life.” They are also easier to “send” to Family History Centers
around the world and to other libraries.
The price of a new PC for use by library patrons has now dropped to
under $500 while a new microfilm viewer designed for heavy-duty library
usage, if you can find one, costs $1,000 or more. Even better, it is
relatively cheap to allow library patrons to view digital images from
their homes, something that is much more difficult with microfilm. The
superior quality and availability, along with the lower cost of
production, maintenance, and duplication, are a boon to us genealogists
as well as those who follow in our footsteps.
Within a few years, some of us will be telling newcomers, “I remember
the good old days when we had to hand-crank microfilm viewers. There
was none of this modern stuff where everything appeared on a computer
screen.”
Would you please hand me my slippers and cane? I’m going to go sit in
my rocking chair and look at my old (digital) pictures of genealogists
sitting at rows of microfilm readers.
14 Comments
I agree with Nancy. Whizzing through a microfilm on a reader
to get to the exact page is so much easier than the “hunt and peck”
method of locating that page on the computer. On the other hand, I was
at the Family History Library recently and the two microfilms I needed
were already being used by others. I was so happy to find those films
had been digitized, and that I could use the computer to read the
records, even though it was not as fast as using the microfilm reader.
I am sad to report that the decision has been made to discontinue The Master Genealogist (“TMG”).
Genealogists
have lots of uses for scanners. We like to make digital images of
information from books, court records, old maps, and even records found
on microfilm. High quality portable scanners are inexpensive these days,
typically $50 and up. You can occasionally find them at even lower
prices if you watch the sales. However, convenience is always an issue.
Do you really want to carry a portable scanner with you at all times
just in case you happen to encounter something you want to digitize?
http://www.archives.gov/preservation/formats/microfilming.html
Northeast Document Preservation Center:
http://www.nedcc.org/free-resources/preservation-leaflets/6.-reformatting/6.1-microfilm-and-microfiche
Heritage Archives archival microfilm company: Why Microfilm?
http://www.heritagearchives.org/WhyMicrofilm.aspx
A simple Google search shows dozens of companies selling microfilm, scanners, and related supplies. Millions of rolls of microfilm exist in thousands of archives throughout the world. Microfilm isn’t going to disappear “in a few years.”