Microfilm Scanning: How much microfilm is out there? Excellent question!

What type of original records have been preserved for several lifetimes on microfilm? Since the medium was first used to capture vital documents in the mid 1800’s, uncountable billions of pages of irreplaceable information have been archived to microfilm.

In the 1920’s a New York City banker named Georger McCarthy was issued a patent for his process for permanent storage of cancelled cheques and other financial instruments. This led to a much wider acceptance of the technology for capturing and preserving original records of all types.

Microfilm Scanning Services in Vancouver

Over the ensuing years many of our City, Municipal and Provincial government clients used microfilm as their primary method of archiving a myriad of records, including, but not limited to birth, marriage and death records, land titles records, newspapers, adoption records, business documents, taxation and immigration documents as well as banking and insurance information. In short, microfilm was the only game in town for safe and reasonably priced records storage.

When the tide started shifting from strictly using microfilm as an archival medium, to digitizing paper records, we saw it playing out in the early 1990’s. Many of our existing microfilm/microfiche clients were very interested in embracing scanning as a new way of preserving and distributing information. We too had been aware of this new trend, and we were in a position to act upon it, but what about the many decades of microfilm in our client’s vaults?

Convert Microfilm to Digital Information By Micro Com Systems

Initially, very little happened with people’s microfilm, but gradually, as new equipment and technologies emerged, it became possible to reliably and efficiently convert microfilm to digital information. Micro Com Systems purchased our first microfilm digitization equipment in 1998 and put it to work right away. That hardware was subsequently replaced over the years and we now have a fleet of 8 Sunrise microfilm digitizers that allow us to convert microfilm, microfiche and aperture cards in any volume, efficiently and at a reasonable cost.