PHOTOGRAPHED BOOKS

Taranaki Daily News, 2 September 1929, Page 2

PHOTOGRAPHED BOOKS

TO AVOID-LIBRARY CROWDING

SUGGESTION FOR BERLIN.

Rolls of photographic film alone can rescue the Berlin State Library from "drowning in books,” in the opinion of some library specialists there, who have advanced a plan for the installation of a “celluloid library,” or film section where photographed books could bo filed instead of the originals.

Books photographed page by page on a continuous roll of film can be stored, it has been found, in less than a fortieth of the space needed for the usual printed volumes. Hence a library of tiny film rolls could have forty times the capacity of the present institution without any extension of the buildings. Old and precious examples of the bookniaker’s art, moreover, when photographed, would need no longer to be exposed to the wear and tear of usage. New books, having no special intrinsic value in themselves, could be destroyed. According io the plan, books in constant demand would be separated from those seldom referred to, and the new photographic system would be first installed with the latter, a special “film reading room ’ being arranged for theii

use. A small projection machine would be installed beneath each table, the “pages” being thrown on a small individual screeli that the student could read while leaning comfortably back in his armchair. No more back-tiring hunching over reading tables or wrist-tiring holding of heavy volumes would be necessary, The book-film could bo run through the projection machine precisely as a movie is run at a. picture theatre. Special tables for encyclopaedias, dictionaries and similar reference volumes are foreseen in the plan. On these the rolls for each encyclopaedia, a separate roll for each letter of the alphabet would be stacked ready for use. In the storage room of the library the “stacks” or shelves would be replaced by metal cabinets full of film rolls, while the bookmaker’s art of to-day would be partly turned to the manufacture of roll covers, of linen, paper, metal or even tooled leather.