 Researching with microfilm can be difficult at first glance. This quick tutorial will help you get to the content you need. What is microfilm? Microfilms are scaled down copies of documents used for transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Images on microfilms are usually reduced to ¼ or 25th of the original size. The optical reduction may be greater for special purposes. Why do we keep microfilm? Microfilm is an antiquated medium, so why keep it? The reason is, there is an astonishing amount of material recorded in them that can't be found anywhere else in our collection. Many microfilms have documents that no longer exist as original copies. Microfilms are packed. Microfilms hold an exceptionally large amount of information, from copious quantities of magazines and newspaper issues, written manuscripts, books, and many other research materials. Thus knowing exactly what range of topics are covered in a reel are impossible to know offhand. Therefore, we need a stratagem for tackling our microfilm collection. There are a couple ways to find out what's inside a reel of microfilm. We have microfilm guides on the left side of the study area on the 6th floor of the library. We have more guides hosted online. They'll be linked in the description below. If there aren't any guides in the library or online, then it's old fashioned detective work. You have to check each role for the content that may be included and if it aligns with your topic. Some microfilms have tables of content scanted to the film, usually for the issue you're reading. Use these like checkpoints in your research to see if it's worth going through a specific issue or chapter. If it seems important, keep it. If it looks remotely aligned with what you need, then capture those pages. You can sort them out more thoroughly after you get through your reel. Use your time wisely. Be inquisitive. If you're interested in the civil rights movement in New Orleans, scan the newspapers from that time. Learn the names of the local leaders and see if they appear in the guides and indexes for the FBI files available in the microfilm collection. How to find your reel. On the right side of the study area, there are several shelves of drawers filled with our microfilm collection. They are stored by collection and in alphabetical order. Each collection shares one call number with the addition of a real number. For example, microfilm 2010, 1130, reel one. This is reel one in the John Ruskin collection. All our reels are in our online catalog. If you can't find your reel or collection, please ask the service desk. They are always there to help. After you have your reel, there are microfilm readers near the front of the service desk. You may use the guides included on the computers or ask for help. I hope you find this information helpful in your pursuit of research materials. If you would like any more information on what the library can offer you, please feel free to check out more of our videos or visit our website linked in the description below. Thank you.