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Show FILMED NEWSPAPERS TO AID READERS Newspaper rooms of public libraries may turn into miniature motion picture theatres if success follows the testing- of a new device for preserving newspaper files on films which the New York public library is trying out. One foot of film carries about eight pages, and a yearly file of bound volumes occupying 108 cubic feet on the library shelves can be preserved on one-third of a cubic foot of film. j As far as it is known, the life of the film is 'indefinite, when . kept under proper conditions of moisture and temperature, it was said by officials of the library when announcing the new experiment. experi-ment. Common newsprint kept in an ordinary library room often becomes brittle within a decade and cannot be replaced. But even if the film should disintegrate within, say, a century, cen-tury, according to Mr. Charles Z. Case, a film expert, it may be copied at comparatively little expense and trouble. A film company is expected to set a price of about li2 cents a page for reproducing newspaper, it was announced. Duplicate negatives can be made for two-thirds of the initial cost. Machines for making the copies can photograph an entire month of issues in 30 minutes. . The device for displaying the film to readers in the library has not yet been entirely perfected, but two of the instruments are already set up in the public library at Fifth Avenue and Forty-second street. The readers sit down in front of a tiny individual indi-vidual theatre, resembling a rectangular box three feet long, set up on end with the open side toward him. The picture is pro- jected down from the top onto a ground glass screen at the bottom, bot-tom, tipped slightly toward, the reader, while the sides of the box serve to keep out enough of the light from the otherwise fully lighted room. In his left hand is a lever which adjusts the portion of the page shown on the glass screen, since only about one-quarter of the page can be squeezed into the screen at a time. His right hand manages a crank which rapidly turns to the desired day and page. About two months. are recorded on a single reel, and tests have shown that it takes no. longer to locate a given article than would be required for finding it in a bound volume. The type is half again larger than the original paper. ".; If a copy is desired of any article, it is only necessary, said Mr. Case, to lay a sheet of photographic paper on the screen and expose it. ' V'' " |