Microforms obsolete?

Despite the fact that the death knell of microforms has been repeatedly sounded in the library press for the past 10 years, I do not see the format going away anytime soon. A lot of libraries have invested too much money in the format for it to just disappear overnight.

I keep hearing that all of the microforms should be digitized: both from patrons and from the library world. However, there are issues blocking that from happening anytime soon: copyright, time (it will take a lot of time to digitize all of the microforms in existence), money to finance it, server issues, then who can get access and for what cost and et cetera.

We did a weeding project this summer in which we recycled the fiche and film that we now have electronic access to. I imagine that other libraries are working on similar projects.


I do not mind microforms -- they are a good way to compress a lot of information into a small area. But electronic access has added indexing and searching that is so much more accessible than microforms ever could be. The end of microforms may not have come but the time is drawing near.

At some point the ability to access the microform format might become so burdensome that a tipping point will be reached and digitization will be forced to occur. It is becoming increasingly difficult to get parts for microform readers and increasingly expensive to maintain them as the switch to electronic access continues to accelerate.

Name changes and irrational decision making

A journal is changing its name -- again -- for the fourth time. Thankfully, we only keep current print holdings and it doesn't effect us much, but pulling down records and updating them, creating MARC records in the ILS does take time and money to do. I realize that as a theological teacher's journal, it probably does not take such mammon-like things [like money] into consideration....

And I will not deign to address the issue of the Educational journal that renames itself every year to fit the political correct term of the moment for special needs students...This one is fun for students doing research to track down -- since we archive it on microform....and they have to hunt about for the current title record and then find it in the microform area.

It seems that some fields of study are more prone to change titles, like the infamous journal Teacher that changed to Teacher, Teacher and Instructor, Instructor and etc. over a short period to "better reflect the outlook of the magazine" according to the editorial in said magazine.

One of the few fields I would think it would make sense to change titles would be science, specifically in chemistry and physics. These journals actually change their scope when they change titles, and that is supposed to be one of the considerations on wheteher something 'counts' as a title change or not. However, at the point that one has 17 journals with the same name and different subtitles, like a physics journal I know of, I think it would be prudent to spin off titles altogether!

Does anyone work for a publisher and know how they decide these things?

The Dangers of Serials Work

Despite the preconceptions people have about library workers and the quiet environment surrounded by books, dust and antiquarians, the reality for serials workers is much different. The reality of serials work is that it is fraught with dangers: paper cuts, envelope cuts, broken nails from trying to pry open the "easy open" plastic sheafs the journals arrive in, dry skin, the risk of tetanus when dealing with staples and the most dreaded of all -- microfiche cuts. Since microfiche is so much thinner than paper, it is sharp and does cut if you are rifling through a drawer's worth of fiche.

Serials in other formats

Serials are a bit of a challenge when presented in formats other than print. Space issues demand that other formats exist. But there are issues that arise.

• Databases don't always include graphics or tables. Also, due to the Tasini case, some freelance work is not included in proprietary databases (though that may change due to the recent ruling in the Georgia case on e-reserves). Additionally, product ads, classified ads and stock tickers are often not included. These exclusions make it a challenge for patrons that are looking for those items and access is not available.


• Microforms are actually a great format, but some in the library community keep trying to sound the death knell of these formats because of digitization. I've been in serials for 8 years and we just bought yet another microform reading machine and so I am skeptical about the impending obsolescence of this material type. The machine we bought will allow editing and saving as .pdf files and that has come in handy.


• Electronic access to publisher sites through urls are problematic and depend on a whole host of issues in order to make sure that access is kept available and consistent.

I know that "print" serials will disappear, but access to the other formats of serials will also become obsolete and we will still need ways to utilize those "older" formats and access the same information contained there. Not to sound like a troglodyte, but it is so much easier to "access" information if you can go to the shelf, pull down the volume and open it to the correct page.