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At the Conference in September, 1945, Mrs. Moholy, as Director of the Aslib Microfilm Service, gave an account of the American ‘ceiling’ projector which was then newly designed for the purpose of enabling persons who are paralyzed, or otherwise so disabled that they cannot handle books, to read by means of microfilm. That instrument was devised by Mr. Eugene B. Power, of Ann Arbor, Michigan, and was produced by the Argus Corporation, of Ann Arbor. It differs from film‐strip projectors in using standard reels of microfilm, like a library reader, and is mechanized in the sense that the reel‐spindles are rotated by electric motors, which are operated by remote control. By pressing a button of the control switch the reader, who is usually lying in bed, moves the film forwards or backwards, and the image of the pages in each successive frame is thrown on the ceiling. The Argus instrument is built to project vertically. It cannot be stood on its side or tilted, but a mirror can be attached to the lens for horizontal projection.

The year 1938, not so distant in point of time, but early in modern microfilm history, saw the establishment of University Microfilms as the first commercially operated microfilm service to serve the needs of scholars and libraries. Other laboratories had been established earlier at the National Archives, the Library of Congress, and the University of Chicago, but each of these had the benefit of outside funds for equipment and overhead expenses and each was primarily concerned with servicing its own collections. University Microfilms sought to provide effective microfilm service at rates comparable with those of subsidized laboratories.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).

UMI is a gateway for the flow of information from the fields of business, education, engineering, social science, and the popular media. The company's staff collects, creates, and preserves information. Then they make it available in print and microform as well as online, on CD‐ROM, and on magnetic tape. They also develop integrated information delivery systems—diverse technologies working together to help libraries increase responsiveness, control costs, and deliver the type of information they and their patrons need—when they need it.

It has often been said that a great part of the strength of Aslib lies in the fact that it brings together those whose experience has been gained in many widely differing fields but who have a common interest in the means by which information may be collected and disseminated to the greatest advantage. Lists of its members have, therefore, a more than ordinary value since they present, in miniature, a cross‐section of institutions and individuals who share this special interest.

I am greatly honoured by this opportunity to discuss with you the subject of micro‐opaques. Two years ago, at the request of Unesco, I made an extensive research into the possibility of all micro‐techniques. An outline of these visits and the conclusions I reached have been written in two reports supplied to Unesco for general distribution.

The meeting took the form of an interview in which Professor Hutton answered questions put to him by a panel consisting of Miss M. Gosset, M.B.E., B.Sc., A.R.C.S., formerly Librarian, AERE, Harwell; Mr B.Fullman, M.B.E., B.Sc., F.R.I.C., F.I.M., formerly Information Officer, BNFMRA; and Mr Leslie Wilson, M.A., Director of Aslib.

My title is ‘Microfilming—the situation to‐day’, with ‘situation’ meaning, in the Oxford English Dictionary manner, ‘the ways things stand at a particular moment’.

AT the very outset of this paper it is necessary to make clear that it is not an attempt to compile an exhaustive bibliography of literature relating to special librarianship. Neither space nor time permit this. In fact, the references given can only claim to be a sample of the wealth of material on the subject and this paper is submitted in the hope that it will stimulate others to more scholarly efforts. Reference numbers throughout this paper refer to items in the ‘Select list of references to the literature of special librarianship’, section 2 onwards.

The newer conception of the library as a documentation centre involves the librarian in communication which in our time has become inseparably linked with reproduction. This is a field in which there have been technical advances, revolutionary in their potentialities but still largely unrealized owing partly to their novelty and partly to the absence of adequate synthesis. The American scene is strewn with a large number of excellent scientific aids to learning, ranging from microfilm to microprint and minicopy, from hand‐sorted McBee cards to elaborate I.B.M. punched cards combined with micro‐film, from offset lithography of the printed page to the brilliant achievement of the Science and Technology Project of the Library of Congress in their Technical Information Pilot, from the Rapid Selector to Ultrafax. To what extent are these inventions and devices being used in practice and how far are they modifying traditional methods of documentation?