A microfiche is a flat film 105 x 148 mm in size, that is
ISO A6. It carries a matrix of micro images. All microfiche are read with text parallel to the long side of the fiche. Frames may be landscape or portrait. Along the top of the fiche a title may be recorded for visual identification. The most commonly used format is a portrait image of about 10 x 14 mm. Office size size papers or magazine pages require a reduction of 24 or 25. Microfiche are stored in open top envelopes which are put in drawers or boxes as file cards, or fitted into pockets in purpose made books.
Advantages:
The major advantages of microfiche include storage in a small space, stability of the format, and no special knowledge needed to read it.
Because of its small size, microfiche can be archived in storage cabinets, saving floor space.
Microfiche, like microfilm, is also a stable archival format. When kept in a temperature-controlled environment, it is rated to last 500 years — a crucial advantage in saving cultural documents. Some opinions hold that microfiche has been rendered redundant by the computer age, but this is not necessarily so.
Disadvantages:
One disadvantage of microfiche is that it requires a special reader to enlarge the type size. These machines are expensive. Microfiche also cannot be enlarged and copied on a photocopy machine.
Another disadvantage is that once microfiche has been imprinted, it is unalterable. A digital information file can be changed or corrected, but microfiche cannot. Digital files are also usually easier to index. For instance, if a person is searching a digital record for a particular name, he can often run a search for that name among all the files and get a list of the files containing that name. Unless the microfiche is well-indexed, a person may find himself plowing through a lot of fiches, looking for one name.
Implications for Collection Development:
The Library holds collections on both microfilm and microfiche. They both include publications which are newspapers or journals, unpublished materials and archives and government documents. Collections (though not individual items) are on the Library’s OPAC with a microfilm or fiche number. The majority of our microfilm collection has been purchased by the Library. It includes old newspapers and archives which we can only buy in this format and in doing so we make available to researchers vast collections for which they might otherwise have had to travel worldwide to see the originals.
Copyright Considerations:
Microfiche follow the general copyright guidelines provided in the policy and procedure manual housed in the media center. Microfiche cannot be reproduced or copied without permission.
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