We got rid of our old (15-20 years?) 3M 1640 reader/printer just a few
months ago. As soon as we had scanned all of our aperture cards into our
document imaging system I was very glad to get rid of the old beast. It
would only print C size drawings so we could never print any of our Arch
D (24" X 36") construction plans at full size and it only had 2 levels
of magnification which was frequently not enough. It required a 220 volt
outlet which was an extra installation expense. The annual maintenance
contract was $5000/year and the nearest technician was 100 miles away.
On the plus side it was quite reliable and rarely gave us any trouble.

I cannot address what current hardware is available as standalone
aperture card reader/printers. I have seen some aperture card
reader/printers that attach to a pc in order to do the printing that
ranged in price of about $1-$3K. They do seem more flexible when it
comes to zooming in and around a drawing than our old beast was. They
may be suitable for your purpose depending upon your available printers
and print sizes you may be outputting.

As we had quit microfilming a few years ago I cannot address the current
cost differential between scanning and microfilming so I understand that
could well be the most important factor for you. If you do microfilm to
aperture cards you will possibly/probably want to have a set of masters
and a set of copies (that will cost you extra I assume) that you would
use for your daily use. Aperture cards are not well protected from
use/abuse. On the other hand, of the tens of thousands of aperture cards
we had we only had to replace a dozen or so over the past 20 years so
with careful use a set of dupes may not be necessary.

If the cost of scanning is in the same neighborhood as microfilming I
certainly recommend using digital images whether you have a document
imaging system or not. You will certainly appreciate the added
flexibility you gain by using digital images. If your field workers have
laptops they could each likely carry all your plan files with them and
avoid the whole printing thing altogether.

Are you microfilming these plans for archival/retention purposes or just
to save file space or..? The reason I ask is that if you have to
microfilm these for some records management policy requirement you could
microfilm them to satisfy that requirement and then have the aperture
cards scanned for your daily usage needs. It cost us about $0.15 per
aperture card to have them scanned and indexed. It currently costs us
about $3.00 per sheet to have Arch D plan sheets scanned and indexed.

Sorry I could not provide more insight as to the current state of the
art of microfilm reader/printer hardware but I am sure you will get
feedback from others on the list.

Gerry



-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Johnson, Chris J.
Sent: Friday, January 26, 2007 1:59 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Experience with Microform Reader/Printer/Scanner

I've been a member of this listserv for several months now and amazed at
the wealth of knowledge (and opinion) on it!  The information floating
across the line is intriguing, entertaining and robust.    

I am researching different Microform reader/printer/scanners.  We have a
very large quantity of blue print plan sheets that we will be
microfilming (most likely to aperture cards).  They will need to be
printed on a fairly regular basis for field work and scale is not
important.  On occasion they will need to be printed to scale and the
only way we have found to do this is to scan the image to PC and then
print it.  We are not interested in scanning all images to digital due
to costs. 

Does anyone have recommendations or experiences with this type of
equipment?   Please respond off line.  Thanks.

Chris Johnson
Agency Records Manager
MN Pollution Control Agency
651/296-7328
[log in to unmask]



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