Microfilm Still Favored For Records Film Is Cheaper, Easier To Use Than Computer Discs, Cds

When archivists at the Mormon Church need to store precious genealogical data they don’t grab a computer diskette. Nor do they turn to CD-ROMs.

They bank on microfilm, an old, reliable way of storing data that - for long-term use - is still the answer for many organizations.

“We plan to have them last 500 to 1,000 years. That’s why it’s on film,” said Eric Erickson of the Mormon Church, which has its data on 2 million rolls of microfilm.

The nation’s records managers are realizing it’s cheaper to store records on microfilm than on computer devices that rely on hardware and software that changes every five to 10 years.

Storing and retrieving records was a hot topic here recently during the Association of Records Managers and Administrators Convention.

“Users find if they store something on any kind of a computer memory today, like optical disc and CD-ROM they have to restore it every five to 10 years,” said Russell J. Burkel, founder of Eye Com Systems Inc. of Hartland, Wisc.

“The problem is basically people don’t speak digital. If you store things in non-human, nonreadable form, you’re then hardware and software dependent. When you’re hardware and software dependent, you need devices called bit stream interpreters to return this to human readable form.”

Burkel is on a committee aiming to raise the consciousness of potential microfilm users. He also is part of an Association for Information and Image Management’s micrographics task force.

Paper still accounts for 94 percent of the long-term records storage market. Microfilm is about 4 percent and electronic is about 1 percent, Burkel said.

The federal government is the nation’s biggest user of microfilm. The National Archives and Library of Congress account for much of that.

The Mormon Church, one of the world’s largest microfilm consumers, face several archiving obstacles, including gathering the information in the first place.

The church has archiving operations in Latin America, Europe, South Africa, China and India in addition to the United States.

Like banks, insurance companies and other organizations that keep long-term records, the Mormon Church does have occasion to combine new technology with old.

Computers are useful for quick access to recent information, but for the older records, organizations return to microfilm, Erickson said.

That creates a hybrid system, and imaging companies responded with systems that can put microfilm in digital form that can be accessed by computer. After six months or a year, the information is then erased electronically but retained on film.

“The hybrid breathes life into the microfilm. You digitalize it, bring it up and send it out into a network,” Canon’s Robert Stankard said during the ARMA convention.

“We all realized at the same that microfilm is still viable.”