Microforms transcript
Interview with Norm Turnross. By Morfia Grondas & Andrea Hurt
Morfia
Down on the Lower Ground Floor, you’ll find the Microforms area. Norm Turnross, is responsible for this collection. Hi Norm, What are microforms?
Norm
Well microforms are photographic images that have been reduced right down on to a film. The two most common formats for microforms are the microfiche, which are flat sheets, and microfilm on the reels. And we’ve got plenty of them here. If you go through the drawers you’ll find lots of different things you can put on microfilm. You’ll find journals, catalogues, newspapers, artworks, there’s manuscripts, there’s maps, government publications, in fact anything that can be photographed can be put on to a microforms.
Andrea
So how large is the collection?
Norm
This is one of the largest and most important collections of microform in Australia.
There are millions of microforms here, so if you’re not looking in the right place you can get lost looking for things down here.
Morfia
So how can you best locate what you’re after?
Norm
The best way to find a particular title is to look up on the Library catalogue. The catalogue will give you a call number. Say if you’re looking for a microfilm, it will give you a call number MIC/o or if you come across a MIC/f on a title, that will be for a microfiche. So then you can just go to that particular drawer that corresponds to that number and you’ll find that title.
Say you’re looking for The Age, if you look up on the catalogue it will tell you that it’s at MIC/o A265. So you just go down to the drawers, and look for the date, and you’ll find the date that you’re after.
Many of these titles are collections of items, and there could be hundreds of reels or thousand of fiche in a particular collection. So that’s where the indexes and guides here come in to it. These guides will tell you exactly what titles are on what particular microfilm or microfiche. For example, say you’re doing research on feminism and you want to look at a particular title in the History of Women collection, there are 1238 microfilm reels in that collection, so if you’re going through the whole lot, you’re going to be here for a long time! But if you use the guide it will tell you that this particular title or this particular author is on reel 94 or 536 whatever. So the guides and indexes here are extremely useful. When you’re on the catalogue you might see the call no MIC followed by the dewey number, that’s actually the guide to the particular collection. So the guides are really useful to use and if you come across an orange card in the microfilm drawers or the microfiche drawers, that alerts you that there’s a guide about, so you can just look for them as well.
There are even some subject based guides available through the library homepage so they can help you find stuff.
And I should add too that if you’re really serious about researching, some of the titles down here you won’t find on the electronic catalogue, so you’ll need to look up on the card catalogue upstairs on the ground floor and they’ll help you find the particular titles.
Andrea
So when you locate the microfilm or microfiche, how do you read it?
Norm
Well, here we have microform readers that can do just that.
Some of these machines are just plain readers but others will allow you to print an image on A3 or A4, or we’ve got scanners where you can email, save something on to a USB or disk, or even burn an image on to a CD. And there’s instructions on all these machines about how to use them. So take your pick on the machines. Oh, and when you’re finished, don’t put your microfilm or microfiche back in the drawers. Please leave them on the sorting shelves or the trolley so we can put them away for you.
Morfia
Some of these machines seem pretty complicated. How difficult is it to use them?
Norm
Well, I see a lot of people come to the desk, and after you say “You need to go to the microforms collection” they act as if you’ve told them they need a triple bypass.
But microforms aren’t all that difficult to use. Believe it or not there are actually people around that really like microforms. And if anyone out there listening thinks that microforms are passed it, well we’ve got titles here that you will never find on the internet, you’ll never find on a CD Rom database or whatever. Even with newspaper databases, all you get is the text, you don’t get the pictures or the big headlines that capture you sometimes. But with microfilm you get just that.
So, here’s the collection down here on the lower ground floor of the Baillieu Library waiting for you to come in and use it. The section’s open whenever the Baillieu Library is, so come and give it a go.
Remember if you need help you can always ask at the information desk.
Andrea
Thanks a lot Norm
Morfia
Thanks Norm