PROGRESS IN DOCUMENTATION: MICROGRAPHICS

Pages295-304
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/eb026524
Published date01 April 1971
Date01 April 1971
AuthorBERNARD J.S. WILLIAMS
Subject MatterInformation & knowledge management,Library & information science
PROGRESS IN DOCUMENTATION:
MICROGRAPHICS
BERNARD J. S. WILLIAMS
National Reprographic
Centre
for Documentation, Hatfield Polytechnic
WHEN SOME FUTURE reviewer looks back over the history of micro-
form systems and techniques (henceforth the emergent term 'micro-
graphics' 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 micro-
film'. 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 pro-
cessing speed and flexibility of the computer is far more closely matched
by the computer output microfilm (COM) recorder with its basically elec-
tronic mode of operation than it ever can
be
by the impact printer's cumber-
some mechanical mode, on a more fundamental issue there
is
an increasing
realization that the exponential growth rate of information cannot in-
definitely be reflected by a similar growth rate in the physical size of
lib-
raries.
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; hard-
ware
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
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