Microform and Digital Publishing
| Pages | 26-29 |
| Published date | 30 October 2007 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/07419050710874241 |
| Date | 30 October 2007 |
| Author | Roderic Vassie |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science |
Microform and Digital Publishing
Roderic Vassie
26 LIBRARY HITECH NEWS Number 9/10 2007, pp. 26-29, #Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 0741-9058, DOI 10.1108/07419050710874241
The King is dead. Long live the King
[introduction]
The purpose of this article is to
explore some of the issues surrounding
the future of microfilm in a digital age
from my perspective as a commercial
publisher of historical archive
materials. Much is said and written
about the lingering death of microfilm.
Indeed, a couple of years ago I was
given to understand by the head of a
microfilm publishing division in the
USA, that his organisation had
effectively ceased all original
microfilming, focusing instead solely
on digitisation as a means of capturing
images of archival collections. At the
same time, however, he suggested that,
because of the initial huge investment
required to create and manage digital
publications, it was only microfilm
sales that kept the organisation from
returning a loss even though the gross
income from the sale of digital titles
was far higher.
``How green was my valley?''
[market for microforms]
So, has the bottom fallen out of the
microfilm publishing market? Apparently
not for, as some organisations shed their
microfilming operations, others cling on
or else pick up the challenge and forge
ahead. For Microform Academic
Publishers, 2006/2007 represented a
record year for microfilm sales, fuelled
partly by large orders for slavery-related
back-file collections as well as new titles.
And earlier this year PraXess Associates,
my sales agent in North America,
deciding the time was ripe to add
preservation microfilming to their healthy
microform sales business, moved to
larger premises, acquired four cameras,
and now has sufficient orders to warrant
running all four full-time, two shifts per
day.
On the other side of the world,
Japanese customs office statistics for
last financial year show a figure of just
over £760,000 for imports of microform
publications for the whole country. This
represents a significant reduction on the
sales ten years earlier in 1996, when Far
Eastern Booksellers, another of my
agents, alone sold more than
£1,000,000 worth of microforms. Taken
in the context of tangible foreign
publications (books, periodicals and
microforms) to a total value of
£247,000,000 imported last year, the
£760,000 spent on microforms counts
for a mere 0.3 per cent. In fact these
figures show that Japanese sales, both
of foreign publications as a whole and
of foreign microform publications in
particular, have declined over the last
ten years by 19 per cent and 60 per cent
respectively. In part, this downturn may
be attributed to a diversion of funds
towards the purchase of online
publications, which are not counted in
the figures for tangible titles. However,
other factors cannot be neglected,
including the impact of a less buoyant
economy on university library budgets
and an ageing population, with fewer
children requiring textbooks.
And yet, despite all this, the outlook
for the niche print-on-demand
microfilm market is not so, so bleak for
publishers. Provided they make canny
choices in identifying new titles, the
money and will to buy the archival
collections on microfilm still exists in
academic institutions in Japan and
elsewhere.
Horses for courses [information needs]
Obviously, sales of microfilm
publications are not worth as much now
in real terms as they once did but,
despite the impact of digital publishing,
they are by no means dead. Conversely,
where microfilm is effectively dead is
in the market for business record
preservation within the commercial
sector. In most of the commercial sector
today, where run-of-the-mill records
need only be kept for the present
financial year plus seven, the longevity
of microfilm represents unjustifiably
expensive overkill, given the much
lower cost of scanning. Even the
reduced ``footprint'' of microfilm
compared to the original paper
documents may appear excessive when
contrasted with the space occupied by
the digital equivalent on a remote
server. But, where digitisation offers a
cost-effective total solution for the
contemporary ``scan it then bin it''
needs of the commercial sector, it still
fails to meet the requirements of the
heritage sector.
Between these two extremes, the
commercial and the heritage sectors,
lies the diverse needs of academic
institutions. While a university
department may be able to take
advantage of the convenience of an
online, as opposed to a microfilm,
collection composed of images of
archival documents to support students
taking a certain taught module, what
happens when this year's module has
been replaced? Does the library renew
the licence to a collection that is no
longer as relevant, or drop it and look
for another? And, suppose it drops it
because the teaching-related
justification (and funding!) has expired,
what are the implications for any on-
going or future projects? If, instead of
buying the microfilm, the limited
budget was spent on a fixed-term
licence to access the online digital
version, any aspirations to implement a
truly comprehensive acquisitions policy
to support the long-term aspirations of a
centre of excellence in research will be
compromised. For the foreseeable
future, can online publications ever
fully satisfy their commitment to serve
the access needs of users in their
specialist field for generations to come?
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