[1989] Pre-digital future: the strange brilliance of microfiche technology

Possibly the greatest storage format ever invented.

By Jesse Karjalainen

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Before there was any such thing as the World Wide Web, all the world’s information was typically housed in libraries across the world, both large and small. By information, I predominantly mean print. The bulk of the world’s knowledge sat within physical books, journals, folders, notebooks and piles of paper.

There were other forms of storage, such as those on magnetic tape (audio, video, code, etc.) of various kinds or celluloid film (film reels, slides, transparencies, etc).

For ordinary people, the most logical place to go and find books, records and other information was to go to the library. That’s what I used to do every week when doing research for school or personal interest.

Younger readers might not believe this, but to find a book you either sought help from the librarian or looked through the thousands of little catalogue cards (I actually had to look up what they were called) to see if a book existed at the library.

You could look up the cards in A-Z order by author surname, by title or sometimes by subject or topic.