“ultrafiche”: See E. M. Grieder, “Ultrafiche Libraries: A Librarian’s View,” Microform Review, April 1972. “Two- and four-year colleges or emerging universities are most likely to be tempted by these collections. They may feel the lack of large foundation collections, and perhaps hunger for more impressive libraries.” See also Mark R. Yerburgh and Rhoda Yerburgh, “Where Have All the Ultras Gone? The Rise and Demise of the Ultrafiche Library Collection, 1968–1973,” Microfilm Review 13 (fall 1984). In 1968, a subsidiary of Encyclopaedia Britannica called Library Resources charged $21,500 for more than twelve thousand books, pamphlets, documents, and periodicals, reproduced on 12,474 ultrafiches. While acknowledging that ultrafiche collections ultimately failed, the Yerburghs contend that the “librarian must declare war on microform illiteracy and user resistance.” They point out that a 1968 proposal by David Hays was the proximate cause of the ultrafiche fervor. In 1966, however, Clapp’s Council on Library Resources had paid Republic Aviation, builder of fighter planes and photoreconnaissance aircraft, to investigate “an ultra-fiche storage and retrieval system.” See David G. Hays, A Billion Books for Education in America and the World; a Proposal (Santa Monica: Rand Corporation, 1968); and Council on Library Resources, Twelfth Annual Report (1968).
“should weigh heavily”: Haas, Preparation, p. 25.
“federal financial support”: Haas, Preparation, p. 27.
even perhaps a film: Haas, Preparation, p. 14.
former OSS outpost chief in Paris: John Edward (Jack) Sawyer was head of the Mellon Foundation from 1975 to 1987. His career in the Office of Strategic Services is mentioned in Bradley F. Smith, The Shadow Warriors (New York: Basic Books, 1983), pp. 385–86.
“savvy, shrewdness”: James M. Morris, “The Foundation Connection,” in Influencing Change in Research Librarianship: A Festschrift for Warren J. Haas, ed. Martin M. Cummings (Washington, D.C.: Council on Library Resources, 1988), p. 73.
“Careful analytical work”: [Warren Haas], Brittle Books: Reports of the Committee on Preservation and Access (Washington, D.C.: Council on Library Resources, 1986), p. 7.
CHAPTER 20 — Special Offer
“collection building”: Veaner, “Crisis in Micropublication,” pp. 448–53. In 1990, Susan Cady wrote that the “quality of a research library is still measured primarily by the size of its holdings. Microforms are counted within those holdings as items owned (film rolls, microfiche pieces, etc.) and titles held. Thus they enhance the status of the institution at a relatively low cost in terms of both purchase price and storage space.” Cady herself has no regrets about the loss of the newspapers: she says that the “preservation of newspapers by microfilming has been one of the real success stories of this technology.” Susan A. Cady, “The Electronic Revolution in Libraries: Microfilm Déjà Vu?” College and Research Libraries, July 1990.
accreditation: Bourke, “Scholarly Micropublishing.”
shady entrepreneurs: Veaner, “Crisis in Micropublication.”
“disposing easily and profitably”: Murray S. Martin, “Matters Arising from the Minutes: A Further Consideration of Microform-Serials Exchange,” Microform Review 2 (April 1973); and “New Microfilms for Old Books,” American Libraries, February 1970. Martin points out that “a minimum sale of ten to fifteen copies is necessary for a micropublisher to reach a break-even point.” When he was associate dean of libraries at Penn State, Martin wrote: “It may save money to buy microforms instead of holding on to bound volumes, but if the volumes were not used before, they are unlikely to be used in the new format in which case even more money would be saved by discarding them altogether.” Murray Martin, “Promoting Microforms to Students and Faculty,” Microform Review 8:2 (spring 1979).
“to cooperate with micropublishers”: Pamela Darling, “Developing a Preservation Microfilming Program,” Library Journal, November 1, 1974.
Iowa’s NEH- and state-funded newspaper project: Prison inmates hired by the State Historical Society of Iowa prepped the pages. But the historical society didn’t participate in Heritage’s free filming offer, because they wanted to keep control of their master negatives.
“gilded age”: Bourke, “Scholarly Micropublishing.”
“Let’s suppose that the user”: Salmon, “User Resistance.”
“an information burial system”: Harold Wooster, Microfiche 1969—a User Survey (Arlington, Va.: Air Force Office of Scientific Research, 1969), quoted in Salmon, “User Resistance.” Another librarian wrote Wooster: “Daily we have an experience which breaks my librarians’ hearts. Our users come in or call up for information. We research and locate it. In those instances when they are told we have it only on microfiche, the reply is ‘forget it’ usually accompanied by an emphatic wave of a hand.” Daniel Gore writes: “Underlying most decisions to purchase microcollections is, I believe, an instinctive realization that such things will, with few exceptions, get little or no use once they are acquired.” Daniel Gore, “The View from the Tower of Babel,” in To Know a Library (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1978), originally published in Library Journal, September 15, 1975; quoted in John Swan, “Micropermanence and Electronic Evanescence,” Microform Review 20:2 (spring 1991).
“the plain fact is that”: Spaulding, “Kicking the Silver Habit.”
“we need massive infusions”: Margaret S. Child, “The Future of Cooperative Preservation Microfilming,” Library Resources and Technical Services 29:1 (January/March 1985): 96.
“need to be targeted”: Child, “Future,” p. 100.
“the general public needs”: Child, “Future,” p. 100.
“universal panacea”: Child, “Future,” p. 96.
CHAPTER 21 — 3.3 Million Books, 358 Million Dollars
“Analysis of the Magnitude”: Robert M. Hayes, “Analysis of the Magnitude, Costs, and Benefits of the Preservation of Research Library Books: A Working Paper Prepared for the Council on Library Resources,” January 21, 1985. With further funding from the Council on Library Resources, Hayes followed this up with a longer report in 1987, which included a revealing survey of attitudes toward microfilm. (“Nearly half the respondents regarded microform, in general, as UNACCEPTABLE,” Hayes writes, and he quotes responses such as “Film is the last resort; never use if we can get copy”; and “Personally abhor microfilm for use”; and “Intolerable for reading, especially hard technical reading”; and “Easier to see thing in newspaper in the original.”) The second, expanded version was entitled “The Magnitude, Costs, and Benefits of the Preservation of Brittle Books,” November 30, 1987; in it, the original 1985 working paper was reprinted, exactly as it was first published, as “Report #0.” Robert M. Hayes, e-mail letter to author, June 21, 1999.