PROGRESS IN DOCUMENTATION: MICROGRAPHICS
Authors: WILLIAMS BERNARD J.S. 
Published: January 2008

When some future reviewer looks back over the history of microform systems and techniques (henceforth the emergent term ‘micrographics’ will be used in place of this ponderous phase) the 1970s will almost certainly be seen to embrace the period over which the subject came to maturity. Previous to this period serious concern with the subject, at least in the documentation field, was the preserve of a small band of enthusiasts, most documentalists and librarians saw microform media as substantially confined to limited use in a few libraries for storing or preserving little used material. Suggestions for potentially wider use were invariably countered by reference to a ‘user resistance’. ‘Nobody’ it was said ‘likes reading microfilm’. This user resistance syndrome existed for a number of reasons, some legitimate, such as inadequate hardware and software (in micrographics software refers to the medium), others less so, there was indeed, for example, a failure to point up the positive aspects; it might be true that users always prefer to read from paper (but even this piece of dogma is now more open to question), but do they continue to do so when it takes ten times as long to obtain at ten times the cost? Essentially, however, the situation was seen by the majority as one in which, except in certain exceptional circumstances, the benefits to be obtained from miniaturizing documents were considered inadequate to offset the disadvantages. The balance is now changing in favour of miniaturization; on the positive side for example the data processing speed and flexibility of the computer is far more closely matched by the computer output microfilm (COM) recorder with its basically electronic mode of operation than it ever can be by the impact printer's cumbersome mechanical mode, on a more fundamental issue there is an increasing realization that the exponential growth rate of information cannot indefinitely be reflected by a similar growth rate in the physical size of libraries. Increasing costs of conventional publishing, particularly postal charges affecting periodicals, suggest that it would be rash to assume that information will continue to appear exclusively in conventional packages. On the negative side too some of the disadvantages are diminishing; hardware is improving partly under the impact of published evaluation reports, software is improving under the impact of standards and of education directed at both producers and users. One debit however continues to accrue; a virile industry continues to generate new media and formats while the old ones refuse to die. In rough chronological order of appearance the library user is now confronted by: 35mm roll film, microfiches, microopaques, 16mm roll film, ultra‐fiches, super‐fiches, mini‐prints and, potentially by, micro‐apertures and 8 mm roll film, furthermore, within each category there are significant variations in reduction ratio and layout. Each format is supported by some well reasoned arguments, legitimate enough when considered in isolation, but in the general context of micropublishing the overall effect is chaotic. There appears to be no ready solution to these difficulties: micropublishers and manufacturers tend to occupy entrenched positions, national standards may ratify established media but only indirectly control the introduction of new ones. The major hope must lie with active user organizations prepared to make their opinions felt during the formative stage.