Recently a student came in and asked me if, in a few minutes, I would be able to help her load and use the microfilm reader behind the Library Information Desk. "Sure," I said and smiled. Then I sat for those few minutes sweating a little and wondering if I should do a covert Google search on microfilm reader operation. In reality, I had never touched a microfilm reader until I came to work at Parkland Library, and the first time I'd been asked to "help" someone, she had pretty much figured it all out herself with me standing at her shoulder saying "that looks good" occasionally. I know that that is disgraceful, seeing as I am a librarian, but let's face it, everything is computers nowadays, and if it's not about computers it's some other digital media or – oh, yes – books. As a lover of books, I am an archivist, and I know something about storing microfilm and transferring books and newspapers to microfilm. But the actual viewing machine at the other end? Interestingly enough … never tried it. My whole life long, when I saw "microfilm" in an item description in a library catalog, I always looked past it for the next entry.

And yet … As a kid, I always liked machines. Motors, electricity, cars, radios, fans. Basically anything that would kill you if it fell into your bathtub. Getting my hair chopped off to free it from the wheels of a wind-up car I'd been revving up too close to my head … that sort of thing. So why did I never give the microfilm machines a try? Perhaps it was the big, dull, unpromising gray screens. Maybe the fact that I thought I had to ask someone to help me use it – like those crazy-looking exercise machines you find in fitness centers. You don't want to look like an idiot when you go to sit down, stick your arm in the leg strap, and throw out your back or what have you.

As of last week, however, I am a die-hard microfilm fan. I want to use the machine again. I love all the knobs. Some of them look like little boat helms. Turn one and the picture flips upside down; hug the middle section of the machine towards you or push it away and the page moves to the right or left. It's like those industrial mechanisms in the old black-and-white German movie Metropolis. Have you seen it? It's about some miner-type workers who have to slave away in a jumping-jack-looking manner at huge clock-like, dial-type machines deep under the surface of the earth, while the upper-class factory owners frolic like overgrown five-year-olds in the sun above.

So why is that fun, then? Because microfilm readers are the sort of machines that make you look busy and knowledgeable. You're flipping switches, turning things. It's making gratifying whirring noises. The main thing is, you don't have to be afraid to sit down in front of it having no idea how to use it, because … There are actually little picture-instructions taped to the table. You can read those and, hey... Now that I've pointed out all the thrills of my own adventure, you might not even mind breaking down and asking a friendly reference librarian for help.

In conclusion …
I basically think we should put everything on microfilm. It has a pleasing, retro-futuristic, "the world is about to change" feel to it. It's like "plastics" in that movie, The Graduate. Bell-bottoms are so stylish nobody admits remembering when they weren't. And knitting, if you're not in the know, is all the new, reviving rage.

-- Leah Broaddus, our Instruction Librarian, is in her first year working in a community college library.

Page 6