The Process of Heliochromy, or Painting in Colours by Light, John Thomson,1855. History of Photography Microfilm Collection, Reel 179, No. 1963.
Microfilm and microfiche may sound rather old school in the age of digital technologies, but they remain a core preservation medium, and provide a rich source of material, from historic newspapers and serials, to theses, manuscripts and books.
The General Library’s Microtexts Room is home to thousands of films and fiche, including the 489-reel History of Photography Microfilm Collection. This set includes published works from the 1830s through to the 1920s, and covers the “history, technology, and aesthetics of photography, ranging from purely technical, theoretical tracts on the physics of photography to rare photographs made by some of the pioneers in the field”.1
The collection includes over 2,200 books, pamphlets and periodicals in English, French, German and Italian. These works were microfilmed by Research Publications (now Primary Source Microfilm, an imprint of the Gale Group) from holdings of major US libraries, including the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, the Epstean Collection at Columbia University, New York Public Library and the Eastman Kodak Company Research Library.
The bibliography and reel guide to the collection's monographs is accessible via Primary Source Media
here and to the periodicals
here. The print version
1 and the reels are in the ground floor Microtexts Room.
Special Collections