Weren't you able to get onto a machine that actually had a printer attached? I've never been to a microfilm library that didn't have them. How did it work that you asked for this copy? Did you have to go look at the reel on a printer-less viewer, then take the reel up to the librarian, give him or her the page number and area you wanted printed, and then wait around for them to go to some other machine, find the page and print it out?
Reading your post again, I'm wondering if you ever handled the microfilm at all. Is that correct?
I’ve handled microfilms.
These were not my requests, which is why I’m limited in what I can say and show. They were requests by someone not at the library who ordered the records from the library. So the librarian made the copies and sent them. But the whole-page view and the close-ups were different from each other, in ways that wouldn’t be explained by smudges on the viewer or copier, or from simply touching the microfilm itself.
That’s about all I’ll say right now. People can reach different conclusions. Both of the people who requested the information saw no problem with what was on their pages. I did a detailed analysis and some checking on how fingerprints would end up showing on a copy and concluded that the copies didn’t pass the smell test. Especially since I already had evidence from other libraries which showed that the microfilms had been changed out - in one case at least twice.
I won’t say that all the librarians were in on the plot, but it seems clear that at least one librarian was aware that what she was sending out under the claim that it came from their microfilms was actually not from their microfilms but a paper photocopy given by (most probably) somebody at The Honolulu Advertiser.
That part of it I was able to see just from my own observation and my own communications so maybe I could eventually post the evidence, but I should touch bases with my colleague.
I better not say anything else. I don’t know what’s mine to say and what isn’t. It’ll have to wait until it can all be revealed.