Let us consider Microfiche. 
First and foremost it has a remarkable packing density reducing 
storage to a minimum. 
There are many excellent examples but perhaps none is more 
pertinent than that which would have applied to the estimated 
6000 pages which made up the printing of the technical papers 
at the Hamburg Congress. 
If it is assumed that these papers were of a standard A4 size 
they could have been accommodated by a minimum of 15 microfiche 
providing a packing density of 420 individual frames on the 
microfiche under the 48x reduction was acceptable (15 rows of 
28 frames) Total weight 70 grams. 
To accept the International standard for such work it would be 
necessary to restrict the packing density to 270 individual 
spaces under a similar 48x reduction (15 rows of 18 frames). 
This would have yielded a total of 23 microfiche. Total 
weight 45 grams. 
Under a 24x reduction, more favourable to such copy and adopting 
a packing density of 126 frames per fiche (7 rows of 18 frames) 
there would have been some 48 microfiche (144 grams weight). 
To those who queued up to parcel their 15 kilograms of papers 
and to post them home at the end of the Hamburg Congress, such 
a treatment would only be received with pleasure, for apart 
from the last named group of 48 microfiche each of the previous 
two groups of 23 and 15 microfiche could have been forwarded 
home in a standard envelope. 
Once home the total technical papers could then occupy a small 
corner of an office desk, easily accessible. 
Secondly, microfiche allows a form of packing which enables 
papers relative to a single topic to be grouped on a single 
fiche and to be stored and referenced accordingly. Depending 
upon the type of camera facilities available, a single fiche 
can incorporate a variety of copy formats. 
Thirdly, microfiche offers a variety of retrieval freedoms, 
varying from that which is totally manual, whereby a fiche is 
selected from its library and placed into a reader or reader 
printer, to a computerised referencing and location freedom, to 
a wholly automated referencing storage, retrieval and printing 
system. 
To these can be added a number of very successful mechanical 
systems which allow for random search and selection procedures. 
Finally microfiche lends itself to some simple and relatively 
inexpensive scanning and reading devices. 
Glendinning 9