Microfilm is cheap, relatively speaking.  If you have a small number of 
important documents, or some documents of obvious public interest, then 
microfilm is NOT the way to go.  But, really, who knows which obituary from 
which issue of "The Potomac News" newspaper in Prince William County, 
Virginia will someday be of research value?  With some serial publications, 
if you want to save everything, microfilm is just about the only way to go.  
The same might also be true for large quantities of paper records with no 
readily identifiable research use.

Also--you can view a 75 year old roll of microfilm on a brand-new microfilm 
reader.  And if you can keep your 50- year-old microfilm reader working 
(which isn't an entirely unreasonable expectation), you can view a brand-new 
roll of microfilm on it.

I'm the head of Interlibrary Loan for a public library system, and we still 
get requests for microfilm on a fairly regular basis.  There's just no other 
cost-effective way to store and transmit certain kinds of government 
information.


>From: "Forbes, Cherise" <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: Records Management Program <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: [RM] Does anyone still use Microfilm?
>Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2006 15:10:16 -0400
>
>Other than the longevity over CD's, why?
>
>Thanks!
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