A FEW REMARKS ON DOCUMENTARY REPRODUCTION IN GENERAL AND MICROFILM IN PARTICULAR
| Date | 01 January 1945 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb026061 |
| Published date | 01 January 1945 |
| Pages | 31-40 |
| Author | LUCIA MOHOLY |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
A FEW REMARKS ON DOCUMENTARY REPRODUCTION
IN GENERAL AND MICROFILM IN PARTICULAR
by LUCIA MOHOLY
Director,
Aslib
Microfilm Service
ON
18 February 1945 the Conference of the Association of Scientific
Workers passed a resolution1 stressing the urgent need for the closest colla-
boration between scientists of
all
countries 'including the fullest interchange
of scientific and technical knowledge'. It is hardly surprising that a paper
on
information
services2
was
included in the programme, and it
was
generally
felt that the response indicated a long-felt need. The issue is significant.
Five hundred scientists representing some sixteen thousand from all over
Britain, and in agreement with co-operating societies in many other countries,
demand co-ordination of effort, including an adequate flow of scientific
information. The long and very important programme of the Conference
did not allow time for discussing the matter in detail; but since this question
is one which concerns the scientific and scholarly world as a whole, I may
perhaps be justified in presenting a survey of the situation in
so
far
as
scholarly
and scientific information can be supplied by means of photographic
techniques.
The use of photography for copying documents is as old as photography
itself.
The earliest reference was made to it by the French scientist François
Arago in his panegyric3 of the new invention named Daguerreotype, after
its inventor. Arago claimed that for the first time in history it was made
possible to produce faithful copies of hieroglyphics and similar documents.
The same claim to accuracy was made by the Englishman Fox Talbot with
reference to his efforts to copy drawings and manuscripts 'by the agency
of Light alone'.4 These examples are only two out of
a
great many similar
instances where the agency of light was used for document copying. Though
it was not always clearly realized, practically every step forward in photo-
graphic technique was a potential improvement in documentary reproduc-
tion. Without such progress Dagron's 'dépêches par pigeons' would hardly
have been possible in
1870-1.
With his microfilms the technique of docu-
ment copying reached a peak which has not yet been surpassed.
The questions of reduction ratio and subsequent magnification are part,
and a small part only, of an agglomeration of problems confronting docu-
mentary reproduction to-day. These are some of the problems:
1.
What are the techniques available?
2.
What is to be the guiding principle for determining the most suitable
technique for a specific purpose?
1 Nature (3 March 1945), clv. 262.
2 By Mr. E. J. Carter, Chairman of the Council of Aslib.
3 At the historic session of the Académie des
sciences,
Paris, of
19
August 1839.
4 The
pencil
of
nature
(1844).
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