The Chelsea Standard
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Digital microfilm machine debuts Monday
By Sheila Pursglove, Special Writer
PUBLISHED: March 6, 2008
This article you're reading may end up in the McKune Memorial Library archives, thanks to a ST200X Digital Film Viewer Scanner from S-T Imaging Inc.
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The machine, which came on the market in January, was purchased from BP Imaging Solutions of Dayton, the result of a $5,000 donation from the Friends of McKune Memorial Library.
The machine is a fully digital 35 mm direct film scanner, unlike its predecessors that used reflected light from mirrors, said Ron Andrews, the library's head of technology services.
It provides a greater zoom range — 7x to 96x — magnification. The reader has high-resolution film scan or instant camera snapshot providing the user with great quality images, and resolution of images from the 35mm films is up to 3600 dpi - 12.9 megapixels.
The ST200X allows users to save scans to CD-Rom, hard drive or USB storage device, and also allows users to send images via Internet-based email.
"Genealogy is such a very popular topic in our area and this new machine will be an extremely useful tool for their research," Andrews said.
"It will also provide the Family History Project another great avenue for adding crisp images to data records. Maintaining quality of the microfilm has also been addressed in that the new reader has no glass that touches the film, thus eliminating scratches."
The machine will be available to the public March 10. Librarians are undergoing training to assist patrons, and quick help guides will be provided. Simple push buttons allow users to set image brightness and contrast, rotate and invert positive and negative viewing of images, zoom, focus and more.
"I see this new microfilm reader viewer scanner providing a more reliable, cutting edge means of accessing, saving or printing images from our microfilm collection and enhancing historical or genealogical research," Andrews said.
The new machine expands the potential to use articles from The Chelsea Standard in local history projects, said Adult Services Librarian Elizabeth Goldman.
"For example, we will be able to supplement the Family History Index Online, our collection of digitized obituaries, with full-text obituaries from the first half of the 20th century. Rather than print from the microfilm and then scan, we can simply take a digital snapshot directly from the microfilm and pop it into the database, giving us a higher quality image and saving a lot of time," she said.
"We also plan to use this machine to add a richness to our one-room schoolhouses oral history project with the Chelsea Senior Center. And no doubt many of our library patrons will enjoy the ability to capture digital images from the microfilm that they can use for research and presentation purposes."
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