When a call number is uploaded into this collection, it consists of digital copies of all the images in the original microfilm. It doesn’t have many titles in it now, but we plan to change that over time. If you are one of those special people who wakes up each morning, fires up the computer, and goes to the Folger’s digital image database (Luna, at present) to see what’s new, you will already know that The Folger Microfilm Image Collection has slowly and quietly oozed into existence recently. If you want to know more about this (and other oddities found in microfilm), read on! The user would know to skip over the punched image. Why did they do that? Well, when the microfilm camera operator accidentally shot two images of an opening or made some other error, they could “delete” one by making a hole in it with a hole punch, instead of splicing it out. This image shows an actual hole punched through the microfilm. Finally, it is true that this is a digital image of microfilm, but it’s not a burnt through place on the film! It’s much more intentional than that. It takes a stalwart person to identify some of the many quotes tossed off by the lead character of “ Cupid’s Whirligig!” The Black Spot is truer than you would think: it is indeed a mark of death. Thank you to everyone who left a guess on this month’s crocodile mystery! Everyone got a piece of it, but none the whole.

Translucent vellum papers