A dragon stands guard over Collins Library’s second floor desk.
Unlike the menacing creatures in the third floor’s literature section, this dragon breathes only paper fire. His spikes and claws are attached with staples and super glue.
If you look closely at his transparent scales, they’re tiny pages from the 1978 Journal of Chemical Education.
More sculptures like this dragon will start appearing in the coming weeks after the librarians determine the winners of the current microfiche sculpture contest.<br/>
Kay Bradt, director of library services, said the library hosted a microfiche contest during the 2010 interterm, from which came the current sculpture on display.
Bradt said the contest is an enjoyable way to get rid of microfiche once the documents they display become digitized and obsolete.
“Do you know anyone who likes to use microfiche?” Bradt said. “If people have the choice between online or microfiche, they choose online.”
The discarded material is proving to be an interesting and unusual material for creative students to work with.<br/>
Senior Ryan Smart is building two intricate tapered towers, which he plans to connect with a covered bridge.<br/>
“I am making it with tape and imagination,” Smart said. “I feel it’s going pretty well. It is kind of hard because the pieces are not fitting together as well as I hoped for, but it is sturdy enough to stand on its own and pop back into place if it gets dented as well.”
Bradt knows firsthand that working with microfiche is difficult. Tape doesn’t stick well to the film and super glue causes the print to bleed. <br/>
“It’s really hard to work with,” Bradt said. “I’ve been working on a project, a quilt, and it’s very stiff … I tried to knit some once, and it was awful … I was thinking something along of chainmail, and it just looked like curly microfiche.”
Bradt recently finished sewing a quilt square out of the microfiche, a process she said took her two hours to complete.
While the library still has “cabinets and cabinets full” of microfiche to use, Bradt said the staff will continue to weed out film that has been digitized. She said they are considering hosting the contest every four years.