The microfiche manuals seem to be very well organized in those files. It is also
likely that a lot of stuff is already available online as scans.
Here is a suggestion for identifying those films with manuals that might not be otherwise
available. Make a video of each drawer. In the video take a ruler and drag it across the tabs
so that each one is visible if only for a moment. If you post the video to YouTube
then we all could watch them to see if there is anything of interest. Slowing and stopping
the video would make them readable. Since they seem to be in order we would know
where to look.
The quality of images in most microfiche that I have used is quite poor. Perhaps using
a high resolution bed scanner would be sufficient. I have an Epson V700 scanner
that has real optical 4800 DPI resolution and 9600 DPI if you use sub-sampling. There
may be even higher resolution scanners that don't cost a lot of money. There are up to
14 page images across the 4 inches width of a microfiche. My scanner would get about
150 DPI (300 DPI sub-sampled) on a single page which should be good enough to get a
usable image.
This would get all the images on the microfiche in one scan. There would be some
work in breaking out each page and assembling them into the proper order. That
work could be farmed out to all of us that are interested. The Museum could just
post the full scan of the microfiche and we would do the rest.
All in all, getting everything of interest in those filing cabinets may not be such an
insurmountable job. The Tek Museum would scan only those microfiche that someone
has expressed an interest in. Then that person or someone else would reformat the
images into usable PDF documents and contribute them back to the museum.
I may try scanning a microfiche if I can find one around here. I cleared a lot of old manuals
out of my lab when PDF's became more convenient. My old microfiche may have gone out as
well.
Pete.
