John W. Kuipers

John W. Kuipers (b. 1918) developed photographic techniques for image storage and retrieval systems.

Life

John W. Kuipers was born in 1918. He graduated from Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan, with a BA in Chemistry and Mathematics in 1934. He went on to earn his MS at the University of Michigan in 1936. He had additional graduate studies at MIT in the summers of 1968 and 1969.

Kuipers worked as scientific staff at QEI, Inc., and as a consultant at the MITRE Corporation in Bedford, Massachusetts. He served as Chief of the Division of the Office Research and Development at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 1964-1973; Director of the Information Sciences Laboratory of the Research Division at Itek Corporation from 1958 to 1964; and held various positions at Eastman Kodak Company from 1936 to 1958.

He was an early innovator and promoter of photographic techniques for image storage and retrieval systems. He worked for Itek Corporation and Kodak where he was director of the Minicard project.

Contributions

Kuipers was an early innovator and promoter of photographic techniques for image storage and retrieval systems. He worked for Itek Corporation and Kodak where he was director of the Minicard project.

Kodak Minicard

A disadvantage of microfilm rapid selectors is that they used serial search of every frame of long rolls of microfilm and potentially more than one roll instead of random access to any specified frame. The principal response was to use small pieces ("chips") of microfilm would be used instead rolls of film. Retrieval would be in two steps: First, the relevant chip would be retrieved from a box, a rotating wheel, or a stick. Then, a particular position on the chip would be located to display a document.

A well known example was the Filmorex system developed in France by Jacques Samain. Attempts to scale up to very large collections was attempted in the IBM Walnut and the Kodak Minicard, required extreme mechanical precision and high speed operation.

Kuipers led the development of the Kodak Minicard system for copying, storing, searching, and displaying opaque microfilm chips at large scale.

Publications

• "Microcards and microfilm for a central reference file." Industrial & Engineering Chemistry 42, no. 8 (1950): 1463-1467.
• Kuipers, J. W. "Microcards and documentation." American Documentation 2 (1951): 89-95. Advantages of microcards as a publication medium.
• Tyler, Arthur W., W. L. Myers & J. W. Kuipers. "The application of the Kodak Minicard system." American Documentation 6 (1955): 18-30.
• Kuipers, J. W., Arthur W. Tyler & W. L. Myers. "Minicard system for documentary information." American Documentation 8 (1957): 246-268. Detailed, illustrated description of Kodak Minicard design.
• Kuipers, J. W. & R. W. Thorpe, R.W. "National interactive information network system for improved communication in energy field." Proceedings of ASIS 13 (1976): 157.

Further reading

• Burke, Colin B, America's information wars: The untold story of information systems in America's conflicts and politics from World War II to the intenet age. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
• John W. Kuiper [sic]. Heritage Hall, Calvin University. [1]