Searching microfilm is about the opposite. Once microfilm has been scanned it s important to remember that you now have digitized images. They are no more searchable than the original film. What s more, they no longer have a perceptible order. Scanned newspapers or newspaper microfilm must be indexed.
Indexing is done by a person looking at an image and typing in date, page, etc.
It all takes time and time is money. The cost of indexing is generally 5 to 10 cents per image. This is in addition to the cost of scanning. Software looks at an image and creates a text file. The text file can vary greatly in its accuracy.