Micro-film reader

[Happy Librarian]

Frank Walker has donated a micro-film reader to the Moline Public Library. He has also donated more than a dozen reels of micro-film that contain the old Howard County newspapers. We are very excited about this new addition to our library equipment. I'm sure it will get alot of use.

[Catwoman]

You have to love the Walker clan...They're all so community-oriented.  I'm glad to hear that the kids of Moline and surrounding areas will have this advantage...There's lots of information that can be accessed through inter-library loan that's on micro-film. 

[Varmit]

Micro-film???  Is that like a flash drive?........my sons question, not mine.  Although, it did make me feel kinda old.

[Rudy Taylor]

Billy, that's funny.

I had an older gentleman ask me recently if we archive our stories on micro-film.

I didn't want to hurt his feelings, but we could archive every story ever printed in our newspapers over the past 125 years on one little chip.  Or better yet, we can archive everything on-line, regardless of the memory size.

Anyway, the new world is changing so fast it is hard to keep up.

[W. Gray]

Good point Rudy about fast changing times.

When I went to college in the late fifties, I would do homework in the big hall. If I had to look up a reference, such as a magazine article, I just went to the shelf with the bound volume and pulled it. Newspapers were in huge bound volumes. (If only I had a computer instead of my portable Smith Corona typewriter while in college)

When I returned to college in the mid seventies, these bound volumes were no longer available—they were on microfilm reels. Research took a good deal more time but lots of space was reclaimed by the library.

When I arrived in Denver in the early eighties, the government was using microfiche to store manuals and regulations. Microfiche was several times more compact than microfilm and look up was much, much faster.

By the time I retired earlier this decade; the government and military was storing manuals and regulations on the internet. Research was much faster especially with the search option.