Anwendungsbeispiel
University of Michigan’s Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library Moves to ST 200 for Microform Viewing
Patrons quickly adapt to new digital viewing- to the point of wanting to take the machine home!
The University of Michigan’s Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library is testimony to the University’s commitment to wise investments. The University was founded in 1837 in Ann Arbor by the Michigan Legislature, and the importance of library resources was recognized by the early allocation of funds. The Library’s first purchase, made in 1838, was James Audobon’s “Birds of America” for the then princely sum of $970.00. It has proven to be a wise investment as the original book is still held in the Special Collections Library. Over the next couple of years, the $5,000.00 allocated for the purchase of books was used to create the basis of the current collection with the acquisition of over 3,400 titles.
The growing collection of books, originally housed in a variety of different locations from the Law Building to professors’ houses, prompted the first library building in 1883. By the early 1900’s, with a collection of over 200,000 volumes, library space was extremely tight and various stopgap measures were employed to better utilize the space. In 1920 construction of a new library building, designed by the esteemed architect Albert Kahn, was completed at a cost of twenty-five cents per cubic foot. After World War 11, enrollment sharply increased with soldiers returning from the war and placed further strains on a library system that had, by now, exceeded 1.75 million volumes. Various other libraries were built on different campuses of the University of Michigan and it was not until 1970 that the south building of the General Library was built – at eight stories the first high rise in the center of campus – housing some 900,000 volumes. In 1971 the north and south buildings of the General Library were renamed the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library.
Over the years various other changes have taken place in the library. Men and women may sit where they please in the reading rooms - in the late 1800’s protocol dictated that women sat on one side of the room, men on the other. The University of Michigan changed from the Dewey Decimal System to the Library of Congress Classification in 1924. In the early 1960’s patrons were allowed open access to the stacks. All of these changes have helped make the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library better able to assist its patrons, a tradition continued in their recent changes in microfilm equipment.
The Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library, with the purchase of five machines, is moving to the ST 200, a new class of digital scanners and viewers for microfilm and, with the new MOCA (Microfiche and Opaque Card) attachment, also for microfiche and opaque cards. One of the advantages of the ST 200s is that they can be used under normal, ambient lighting – they do not require a special room for viewing microfilm. In fact, the Harlan Hatcher has the ST 200 installed along a bank of windows. The compact ST 200 scanner is easily set-up on a desk, using a regular PC as the viewer – Harlan Hatcher converted three public PC’s for use with the ST 200, but they can still be used for look-ups as well as microfilm viewing. However, according to Marcia Bailey, Department Head – Serials and Microforms Services of the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library, a major advantage for her patrons is the flexibility it gives them in saving their materials – they can save to CD ROM, USB thumbsticks, personal computing space as well as the standby printout. This flexibility has great appeal, particularly to students, as the library charges thirty-five cents a page for printouts using the conventional microform reader printers, so being able to save to another medium and than deciding whether or not to printout on their own printers is a lot cheaper.
The library has over 2 million pieces of microform – around 30% are microfiche, and the rest rollfilm. The department itself does not have opaque cards, but the ST 200 located in the Government Document center is used for viewing as microprints are a large part of this collection. The MOCA attachment allows patrons to view and print information from the Library’s microcards, which make up a small but widely used percentage of the microform archives - previously they had no way to print out the information, so had to make notes from what they were viewing.
Some of the more frequently accessed volumes are the library’s serial collection of periodicals. They have over two hundred newspaper titles from all over the world, comprising a broad spectrum both geographically and from viewpoint -encompassing both liberal and conservative.
Ms. Bailey commented that the library has a number of students researching art dissertation topics. For these students in particular, the ability they have with the ST 200s to do clean-up, adjust contrast, correct and view before the print permits them to obtain a much more faithful reproduction of microfilmed art work and calligraphy. This flexibility allows for more fine detail to illustrate the points in their dissertations. It is also helpful for those writing books. One such writer appreciates the additional clarity for the duplication of cartoons – and it also allows electronic transmission to the publisher, so that the clearly defined drawings do not have to go through a print and reprint process, potentially diminishing the quality of the reproduction.
Ms. Bailey finds that the new online tutorial is very helpful, particularly for those patrons who may not be “computer savvy”. “Students gravitate to it; they find it intuitive and easily latch on to it.” For patrons who do not have as much computer experience, particularly those researching death notices or census documentation, it takes about 20 minutes to help them become adept; they most frequently
opt to save to disk (which they bring along or purchase from the library vending machine for $1 each) and then print at home, as it is more economical. The library does not use printing as a revenue earner, only to recover costs, but the Minolta toner for the older machines is expensive, which makes the print cost high. However a number of people, with a more mechanical approach to things, prefer the old view and print machines. So the library is not proposing a 100% conversion to the ST 200, but will retain some of the older machines.
For those who do use the new machines, new features have made them even better. The library upgraded the lenses to the new 48x which, together with the snapshot view option, makes the viewing process faster and clearer, particularly if no cropping is done. The library staff is able to appreciate the additional advantages as they use the machines to transmit articles requested via the inter-library loan service.
Perhaps the views of the ST 200 are best summed up by one patron, who was not computer savvy but amiably learned how to use the machine to research death indexes – and found the job much easier. In fact Marcia Bailey received e-mail stating that “the only thing that would improve the new machine would be if I could take it home and use it in my living room!”
