This CarLibrary.org website provides a progressive set of processes that an individual, collection or auto museum can use to organize auto-related materials, photos, books and documents.  These processes are also applicable to a non-automotive collection/archive.  The techniques show individual collectors how to make a "digital scrapbook" or personal archive to professional standards,

Further down on this webpage is the image of a vault - it links to sample automotive archives created with the Greenstone Digital Library software.

The CarLibrary.org website was first published in 2012 and has continuing updates.  Webpages and links were added in 2020 - 2023 for:

• Geo-tagging photographs and other digital assets

• Preserving Automotive History

• Sources for Metadata Standards

• Identifying Historic Photographs with Metadata - A Demonstration

• Society of Automotive Historians

• "Introduction to Digitizing and Organizing Family Photos and Documents"

New resources were added in Section 15 of the Table of Contents. 

The Table of Contents (see bottom footer) was revised in 2016; as were improved webpages and topics.  The original Table of Contents is now the "Archive-Table of Contents"; it can access the old webpages.

In June 2016, web page updates were updated after visiting three Indiana auto museums. Two of these museums are accredited by American Alliance of Museums (AAM) and follow the "National Standards and Best Practices for U.S. Museums".  The updates reflect "lessons learned" from these visits.

The news/blog section originally on this page has been moved to "CarLibrary.org-News".  

Your comments or questions are invited!  Email me:  Bob Schmitt, rgschmitt@gmail.com

Background

The CarLibrary.org web site describes an ongoing project which initially investigated several approaches to organizing the inventory, photographs, documents and other materials that are part of an auto collection or museum.  Prototype "digital collections" were quickly created with the Greenstone Digital Library open-source software.  These sample "digital collections" can be accessed through the "vault" image, below.

The techniques used to make digital archives/collections for car collections can be used for personal collections of photos and documents, both physical and digital.  These techniques are in the Table of Contents (bottom of page);  they are "how to" guides for creating archives and organized collections.  These topics review techniques using a spreadsheet (Excel) file, a database, the Greenstone Digital Library software and a Collections Management System (CMS).

The Online Preview has been Discontinued

Click the image or link below to see a few of this project's original car collections/archives.  This link describes the contents of the library, which are sample, prototype Greenstone Digital Library collections of cars, their histories, photographs and documents.

Click any of the collection logos to go to a particular archive.  These online collections are updates and expansions of the digital library collections originally distributed on DVDs; these navigation tips apply if you need help.

Sample Car Collections/Libraries/Archives

The Digital Archive was online from May 15, 2012 until July 1, 2021 except for brief periods of hardware maintenance in December 2014; also in January, April and September 21-22, 2015.

On September 17, 2019, the archive was transitioned to the Amazon AWS cloud service with significant help from Greenstone expert Diego Spano. Thanks, Diego!  The AWS account was closed on July 1, 2021.

These Sample Car Collections/Libraries/Archives are available on DVDs or a USB drive, upon request.

July 4, 2023