An inquiry into two approaches to help organize inventory and materials on auto collections is summarized below.  This webpage also provides links to my Project Report on this inquiry, the website for Greenstone Digital Library software and a guide to a "Car Library" data DVD, with sample Greenstone-organized car collections data.

Click this link to see the results (the library may only be active during U.S. Pacific coast extended business hours):

Sample Car Libraries

Databases

One approach to organizing "items" is a traditional database.  Using an older version of the Microsoft Access database program, a simple database was created with using a list of cars and club members from the Frazer Nash Car Club.  An original Excel file was redacted and imported to Access to make a table (list) of members and a separate table of Frazer Nash cars.  The initial goal of this database was to produce a report that shows all owners, over time, of the prewar and postwar Frazer Nash cars.  This sample data has produced good results, but the research and data-entry required for all the cars and owners is an extensive task, likely for more-knowledgeable FN Club members.  These database functions can be expanded to perform all traditional car club tasks - member information, event planning, mail lists, etc.

The same database techniques were then adapted to organizing the inventory and basic data on individual autos in a collection, a task likely now done on paper files or a spreadsheet.  Another simple Access 2000 database was made.

Digital Library

In a step beyond a database, "digital library" software seemed most promising for organizing automobile-related images, reports, video, websites, history, specifications - nearly any item in digital format.  After several weeks with the tutorials and workshops provided on the Greenstone website, this goal is confirmed.

Greenstone, an open-source program developed at Waikato University, Hamilton, New Zealand, was partly customized to be "car data friendly" and produced three sample "collections" on a self-running (data) DVD with the goal to promote interest, discussion and use by the owners of car collections, auto historians or car hobbyists.

There is a similar open-source program, DSpace, developed by MIT and HP, primarily for academic use.  The DSpace site states that more than 300 institutions use this system, mostly in the U.S.  At the data-level, the programs are compatible.  There is a Greenstone tutorial showing how to move a digital collection from DSpace to Greenstone and vice-versa.  Internet comments and comparisons of both systems seem to confer no advantage to either and note that meta-tag classification in either collection is preserved.

Because of specific interest in Greenstone from several collections and archives, a step-by-step guide to importing an Excel file of car-related data into Greenstone was created.

Prototype Collections

Several versions of data DVDs have been distributed (see link below) with old racing magazines, data (documents and photos) from the Petersen Automotive Museum and digital data about the Frazer Nash car.

This is a video progress report, to be Part 1 of a series, on the improved Frazer Nash portion of the project as of January 9, 2012.  I think the results are very successful.  Part 2 is an 11-minute demonstration on adding records (photographs) to the Frazer Nash collection and selecting metatags for those photos.  The video also shows the Excel source for the new Frazer Nash owners collection and explains how that Excel file was imported to Greenstone.  The final Excel file was put together from several sources, including an export from the trial Frazer Nash Access database.  Progress on the Frazer Nash digital archive is on this webpage.

In April, there was a conversion/import from the catalog of the Bristol Heritage Trust archives on Excel files into Greenstone for the Bristol Owners Club.  

Next Steps

1.  Because introducing Greenstone by mailing or distributing the collection samples on a DVD (see below) is not efficient, it would be good to have these samples/prototypes available on the Internet very soon.  Greenstone ran first on a 10+ year old Shuttle computer using Ubuntu (Linux) server software.  After some effort to learn this software - and with expert advice from Waikato University - it became "Internet accessible" on May 15.  This was a real stretch of my computer capabilities!  Greenstone, using a Linux server, allows vehicle collections with modest computer budgets to make their library accessible on a local network, or the Internet, at very low cost.

I will soon have a webpage with the steps needed to get Greenstone on Ubuntu Server 12.04; without the dead-ends!

2.  For parties interested in using "best practices" to survey and acquire open-source or commercial digital library offerings - and professional implementation assistance - I've starting reviewing and drafting technical specifications (requirements) and a statement of work for a digital library project.  I am using Requests for Tender/Proposal from four public agencies as models.  One checklist is complete.  Target completion is May 31; a link to the completed, free-to-use draft(s) will be posted here.

3.  We have significant older data resources in "image only" PDF files.  These can be converted to text-searchable PDF files in batch mode with commercial OCR software, such as Omnipage.  The Sports Car Library (link below) would be much more useful to auto historians in a searchable format, so this will be a summer project.

About This Project

• The Project: How to Better Organize Car Collections Data 

• Importing Excel Databases/Lists to Greenstone

• What is on the Sample Car Library Data Disk?

• Access Databases for Car Club Registries and Car Collections Management

• The Sports Car Library - A collection of 578 periodicals on a 16 GB USB drive

Other Digital Library Resources and Information

• Greenstone Digital Library Home Page

• A "Gold Standard" Digital Library - the Autry National Center of the American West 

• Open Source Digital Asset Management Systems - Listed

• DSpace Home Page

• Article: "StoneD - A Bridge between Greenstone and DSpace"

• Car Museums and Collections - A Worldwide List

The Sample Car Library Data Disk

If you would like to have a working Greenstone collection containing three separate collections, send me an email with your address and I'll send you the "car collections" data DVD.  The cost is $5, which includes postage anywhere.

Contact me if you would like help starting a digital library.  If you send me a digital list (Excel preferred) of your photos, documents or items to be in the library, I'll make it into a Greenstone collection starter and include it on the above-described sample disk - no extra charge!