In a recent adventure in patience, I retrieved my senior project from 2005 and posted it to the site.
The only existing copy was in the university library at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo on microtext. Here was the process of retrieval and digitization.
Step 1: Find a library that has a microtext-to-digital scanner. The Boston Public Library fit the bill.
Step 2: Transfer the item from California to the Boston Public Library via interlibrary loan.
Step 3: Scan.
Step 4: Retouch.
Step 5: Run OCR (optical character recognition) on the document.
Step 6: Correct countless text recognition errors.
Step 7: Replace scanned images with the originals (those that could be found).
Step 8: Compress PDF and publish.