Microfiche, and its close cousin microfilm, have been around for years. They are valuable research and archive sources in libraries around the world. A microfiche is a 4 by 5 inch (10.2 by 15.2 cm) piece of photographic film, containing printed information in a size too small to be seen by the naked eye. Books, journals and magazines are often archived on microfiche. The advent of microfiche allowed libraries to carry printed resources they would otherwise never have the floor or storage space to hold.

The major advantages of microfiche include storage in a small space, stability of the format, and no special knowledge needed to read it. As long as a microfiche machine is available to magnify the print to readable size, anyone who can read the language can read a microfiche. Because of its small size, microfiche can be archived in storage cabinets, saving floor space. Thousands of government documents are archived on microfiche for this very reason.

Microfiche, like microfilm, is also a stable archival format. When kept in a temperature-controlled environment, it is rated to last 500 years — a crucial advantage in saving cultural documents. Some opinions hold that microfiche has been rendered redundant by the computer age, but this is not necessarily so.

CD-ROMs are not as stable for archives as previously believed. They are much more sensitive to temperature changes, and prone to scratches and information "drop-out." Constant use tends to degrade the media, which is not the case for microfiche. However, a CD-ROM can be copied an infinite number of times.

One disadvantage of microfiche is that it requires a special reader to enlarge the type size. These machines are expensive. Microfiche also cannot be enlarged and copied on a photocopy machine. However, most microfiche machines can make copies from the film.

Another disadvantage is that once microfiche has been imprinted, it is unalterable. A digital information file can be changed or corrected, but microfiche cannot. Digital files are also usually easier to index. For instance, if a person is searching a digital record for a particular name, he can often run a search for that name among all the files and get a list of the files containing that name. Unless the microfiche is well-indexed, a person may find himself plowing through a lot of fiches, looking for one name.

Microfiche will probably remain useful as a backup for computer files. However, its heyday of being a primary archival source is gone.