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Microfilming Services for Harvard Libraries

Microfilm continues to be a very reliable and durable medium for reformatting brittle or fragile library materials. It is not dependent upon electronic technology, is easily duplicated for access, and if properly stored, has an expected life of more than a thousand years. All of our microfilm is created on high contrast 35mm silver halide microfilm, conforming to ANSI, AIIM, and ISO standards. Imaging Services abides by Research Library Group guidelines for preservation microfilming. Microfilm is well suited for serials and monographs that are extremely brittle and mostly text based.

Services for microfilming include the following:

• preservation microfilming on 35mm silver halide master negative film, including creation of duplicate negatives and positive services copies
• inspection of all generations of film to ensure that image capture and film processing meet established national standards and local specifications, including density, resolution, and frame by frame review
• tying and boxing of fully processed film and preparation of master negative microfilm for storage in the Harvard Depository
• duplication of microfilm in the Harvard University Library collections, in compliance with current copyright legislation
• creation of paper copies from microfilm in the Harvard University Library collections, in compliance with current copyright legislation

Selected microfilming projects

NEH brittle books and serials program

Between 1989 and 2006 Harvard University participated in the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)-supported preservation microfilming program for brittle books and serials. As of June 2006, Harvard had completed seven grants, with a total contribution to the program of over 105,000 volumes (17.78 million frames of film).

• Project descriptions
• Project statistics
• News articles

Other federally-funded initiatives

• Title II-C microfilming projects (1978-1989)
• Preserving and Providing Access to the Henry Hobson Richardson Collections, supported in part by NEH (Jan 1994-Dec 1995)
• National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC)-sponsored project to preserve Harvard's daguerreotypes (1995)