Microphotography
85 years ago: Alert Librarians could not ignore it!
In 1936 microphotography was the shiny new technology for alert librarians.1 Until the Internet and the advent of digital storage, microform technology was seen as the solution to library storage challenges. In 1975 Germany issued a special stamp for a prize-winning camera.
Microfilmed information needs only about 5 percent of its original need for archive space and are ready in seconds for the evaluation. 2
The history of microforms.3
Raney, M. Llewellyn. Microphotography for Libraries. Chicago: American Library Association, 1936. Reviewed for alert librarians: “Microphotography for Libraries.” 1937. Library Quarterly 7 (April): 276–78.
Commemorative stamp series - Germany 1975. At the Leipzig Spring Fair in 1975, the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications of the German Democratic Republic issued a multicolored special postage stamp of the microfilm camera PENTAKTA A 100. In all areas of social life such as in industry, science, administration and teaching, the existing information systems are significantly burdened by a constantly growing volume of information, by a veritable flood of paper and their effectiveness is limited , The demand for rational methods of information storage, evaluation and duplication as well as the organization of highly effective information processes is therefore becoming more and more urgent. The way out and technical solution is the microfilm. The microfilm recording camera PENTAKTA A 100 is the first member of the microfilm device chain produced by the VEB PENTACON DRESDEN combine. In 1973, the camera was awarded a gold medal by the Office for Standardization, Metrology and Goods Inspection and the Leipzig Trade Fair Office. Microfilmed information needs only about 5 percent of its original need for archive space and are ready in seconds for the evaluation. The planned and ever more intensive introduction of PENTAKTA microfilm technology on a RGW scale is an essential prerequisite for the organization of efficient information systems in the socialist countries as well as a future-oriented tool for scientific and technical cooperation and the international exchange of information. https://www.stamp-store.com/catalog/commemorative-stamp-series-germany-1975-10-pfennig-560166
Meckler, Alan M. (1982). Micropublishing: a history of scholarly micropublishing in America, 1938–1980. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
I learn something new with every one of your posts. Now I know whom to blame for the hundreds of hours I spent in original research squinting into a microfilm reader.
Related, National Car Rental's Emerald Aisle service, in which members select any car on the Aisle, grew out of use of microfilm to record a master rental contract for members in order to save a sum measured in pennies and nickels per transactions. Its use as a marketing tool was ingenious. I've been an Emerald Aisle member since 1994.
Must you make the DDR seem cool? I understand that among Germans there's a term for this: "Ostalgie." The Germans have a word for everything.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostalgie