According to modern archival practice, important original documents are usually safeguarded by not allowing researchers to actually handle them physically. Instead, users inspect the records on microfilm and ask for hard copies of those pages they want to take home. These pages are then printed from the film. That is why meeting records entrusted to either the Friends Historical Library at Swarthmore College or the Quaker Collection at Haverford College should be microfilmed. Minutes of business meetings and records of vital statistics are used most heavily by researchers and are the first priority for filming. Ideally four copies are produced: a preservation archival master, which is kept as archival record; a printing master used to make additional service copies; and two service copies, one for each of the depository libraries, to be used for research. The depositing meeting will usually pay for the making of three copies, while the additional service copy is paid for by the Records Committee from a special fund.

The basic cost for making 3 microfilm copies currently averages $.20-$.25 a page, depending on a number of factors. Assuming that your meeting generates 50 pages of business minutes and vital statistics a year, the cost would come to between $10 and $12.50 per year. The Records Committee recommends that your records be deposited at either library every 3 to 5 years but that filming take place every 10 years so that each reel will be more filled. Otherwise a meeting's records could be scattered across several reels. Archivists at Haverford and Swarthmore will cooperate with each monthly meeting to determine when enough of its records have accumulated to make a reel and will provide an estimate of the total cost.

Meetings which find the cost of microfilming prohibitive may then request assistance from the Records Committee. Please note that the Quaker depositories at Haverford and Swarthmore Colleges contribute the costs of preparing the materials for filming (no inconsiderable expense), for coordination with the vendor and for quality control of the microfilming.

Approved by the Records Committee of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 1997

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