Even in this digital age, many libraries and small archives often use microfilm and microfiche to display important information. There are many types of devices for reading these media, and many ways to use and, unfortunately, misuse these technologies. Librarians and archivists are well-aware of the problems and, if they haven't done so already, are almost certainly considering digitization with its obvious advantages. Yet, there are many pitfalls. Digitizing Microfilm and Microfiche is intended for anyone who has to deal with the economics and technologies of a digitization project. The author, Ronald J. Leach, recently retired from a long-time career as a Computer Science professor, and has had considerable experience with multiple digitization projects for numerous organizations with a variety of systems. He had also worked on microfilm quality assessment for a government agency.
Paperback and hardback copies of this short book may be kept as a reference for those libraries and archives that use microfilm and microfiche. These libraries and archives could also use digital editions of the same book on their local internal websites.
The companion volume, User Guide to Microfilm and Microfiche, is intended for anyone who is just that, a user of these technologies.
About the Author
I recently retired from being a professor of computer science at Howard University for over 25 years, with 9 of those years as a department chair. (I was a math professor for 16 years before that.) While I was department chair, we sent more students to work at Microsoft in the 2004-5 academic year than any other college or university in the United States. We also established a graduate certificate program in computer security, which became the largest certificate program at the university. I had major responsibility for working with technical personnel to keep our department's hundreds of computers functional and virus-free, while providing email service to several hundred users. We had to withstand constant hacker attacks and we learned how to reduce the vulnerability of our computer systems.
As a scholar/researcher, I studied complex computer systems and their behavior when attacked or faced with heavy, unexpected loads. I wrote five books on computing, from particular programming languages, to the internal structure of sophisticated operating systems, to the development and efficient creation of highly complex applications. My long-term experience with computers (I had my first computer programming course in 1964) has helped me understand the nature of many of the computer attacks by potential identity thieves and, I hope, be able to explain them and how to defend against them, to a general audience of non-specialists. More than 5,000 people have attended my lectures on identity theft; many others have seen them on closed-circuit television.
I have written more than twenty books, and more than 120 technical articles, most of which are in technical areas.
My interests in data storage and access meshed well with my genealogical interests when I wrote the Genealogy Technology column of the Maryland Genealogical Society Journal for several years. I was the editor or co-editor of that society's journal for many years.
