Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 08:54:53 -0400
From: Frank Sadowski <fsadowski@RCL.LIB.ROCHESTER.EDU>
Subject: Re: Micro-opaque? (Buddy Pennington)

Buddy,  Micro-opaques are essentially a dead technology, and readers are
hard to come by.  The micro-image is printed on a paper base (just like
your Kodak snapshots), and the reader bounces light off the surface
rather than shines through.  Therefore, your readers will not work.  If
you don't find a reader somewhere, a very powerful magnifier will do the
job, but this is difficult and not very satisfactory.  I believe there
may be some company(ies?) out there who can convert micro-opaques
(Microprint and microcards) to microfiche or film, but I'm sorry I can't
give you a reference.  Some companies, like Readex (a division of
Newsbank, inc.), are converting their micro-opaque titles (in Readex's
case, Microprint) to microfilm, but slowly.  The one collection I know
Readex is working on is Early American Newspapers (see
http://www.readex.com/scholarl/earlamnp.html).
-------------------------
Frank E. Sadowski Jr.
Principal Cataloger
River Campus Libraries
University of Rochester
Rochester, NY 14627-0055

585.275.4496
franks@rcl.lib.rochester.edu

Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 15:53:40 -0500
From: "MD_Buddy (Buddy Pennington)" <MD_Buddy@KCLIBRARY.ORG>
Subject: Micro-opaque?

Hi all,

All we have here at are library are machines that read microfiche and
microfilm.  We have run up against some items that we can only get in
a
format known as micro-opaque.  Will standard microfiche/film machines
be
able to read that or not?  What exactly is micro-opaque?

Buddy Pennington
Document Delivery Librarian
Kansas City Public Library
md_buddy@kclibrary.org
816-701-3552