HOW TO Digitally Photograph Microfilm: To reduce transcription errors, have a permanent record and get more accomplished in the limited time available on our local microfilm readers, I recently experimented with digitally photographing the wanted information on a microfilm. Here is what I learned. The microfilm reader was the type with a vertical ground glass screen. I soon learned that a gentle cleaning of the glass holders and lens was a good idea. And one should try different models and select the one with the best optics. Often at magnification, the in-focus area is very limited on some machines and may not cover all the data you wish to copy. If this is always the case, then try lower magnification on the viewer to expand the data in-focus and use the camera's optical [not digital] zoom and a higher pixel setting. The camera I used was an older cheap Canon with 3x optical zoom and a supplementary focusing beam for low light conditions - important. It was only 2 MegaPixel but this was usually adequate. It used 4 AA batteries and these were necessarily rechargeable NiMH for the long sessions with the LCD viewer on and also if you suppress sleep mode for your convenience. It had 512 MB memory [only costs $Cd 75] that allowed for over 1,000 black & white images at a good resolution of about 500 KB. The Canon did not have a swiveling LCD viewer that would be necessary if shooting a non-vertical surface. A sturdy tripod is an absolute necessity since the camera will be working as slow as 1/15th sec. shutter speed at ISO=50 for quality. I tried clamping to the back of a chair but it was a little too low and was awkward to use. One feature that I really dislike with digital cameras is the delay from the time you press the button until it takes the picture. In this application, however, this is an advantage since it reduces the jiggle without having to program it into self-timer mode. I could leave the tripod between the screen and me as I searched the film. With newspapers and their columnar information, I turned the camera on end. The camera was set up in Program mode so that there was NO FLASH and the images were black-white [to save memory space]. Initially I used the medium quality settings but that was inadequate for larger, unmagnified areas. When you have lots of memory, it is probably best to use a higher quality of pixels and super-fine compression so as to avoid repeating your work. This will result in JPEG images of about 600 KB or greater. It is hard to tell the resulting quality on the camera's LCD screen so it is only when you load it into your computer that you know your true success rate. An important accessory is a pack of small Post-it notes. These are used to label your image with identifying information, such as date & page in a newspaper. You stick these on the screen next to your wanted information. This helps you line up the camera's field since you really can't read the microfilm's info on the camera's LCD screen. It also provides an opaque surface by which the camera's auto-focus system can better gauge the distance, if the Post-it is in the central focusing area. I also try to include a date byline in the field of view for another date verifying piece of information. This can be your only note-taking while at the microfilm viewer if you also image the film's title and contents pages. I was pleasantly surprised at how much quicker one can get information from a microfilm using this technique. I did 100 images in 2 hours, but I was only scanning for BMD headings in a newspaper. These images covered about 200 BMD events. In many cases in past note-taking, I would have extracted only essential data; not have written out every word; and I would make some spelling mistakes or have illegible notes. But the job is not done until you re-examine the images and extract the pertinent information into your computer and other files. That can take a lot of time, but you do that at home at your leisure. You also have to expect some mistakes in imaging that have to be redone. But you know that you have it right when questioned about your file data because you have a copy of the original document. I do not bother printing the images since that costs and the quality is poorer than on the screen. Back-up CDROM's are my archive. I find Ulead Photo Explorer Ver.6.02 handy for viewing the file, re-orienting and renaming the images. Version 8.5 is available for $US 29.99 from www.ulead.com but most digital cameras come with similar useful software. One can only hope that this is a short-term technique until we all have easy access to PC-based microfilm viewers with CDROM burning capability. BTW, the professional librarians were fully aware of what I was doing and expressed no concern. Questions and suggestions welcomed. Mat