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Microfilm in the Notre Dame Archives

Scope and content of microfilm in the archives, with advice on how to use particularly challenging collections.

Scope

The University of Notre Dame Archives has microfilm collections that fall into several categories. Some collections exist only on microfilm in our archives, and of these some can be found only at Notre Dame while others are collections we purchased from other repositories and may be found in many libraries. Some of our microfilm collections belong to larger collections that include paper files and other media, and of these sometimes the microfilm duplicates paper files and sometimes it does not. Some of our microfilm consists of images selected from many of our manuscript collections and brought together because of the wide interest in a particular topic or individual. We have microfilm versions of some collections produced with support from NHPRC (National Historical Publications and Records Commission) and sold as microfilm publications. We have microfilm of many periodicals, and for some of these we have the right to sell copies.

Discovery

By way of our usual search mechanism you can discover microfilm that might interest you in your research. A search for "microfilm" turns up over 25,500 records. Of course, researchers generally discover microfilm collections when they search our holdings not for microfilm, but for whatever actually interests them. Our archives website has additional possibilities for searching.