What follows is the first of three articles addressing available research resources written by Mark Vargas, SAH Board member and Director of Grants and Research at America’s Packard Museum.
Many aficionados of automotive history, like the members of SAH, look for sources of information on their topic. Often the search begins and ends on Google, or by contacting one or more auto museums or clubs. Yet there are far more effective ways of searching that can lead to spectacular results. This article describes the first of three especially important tools WorldCat, HathiTrust, and the Internet Archive. Future articles will provide details on the HathiTrust and the Internet Archive.
WorldCat is the world’s largest, comprehensive database for library and archival materials. Operated by the non-profit group OCLC, WorldCat contains links to the holdings of over 17,000 libraries worldwide from over 100 countries. Academic, public, corporate, national, and special libraries contribute bibliographic records in over 500 languages. If any worldwide library is a member of OCLC and adds their materials into WorldCat, it can be found by any user, anywhere, any time. WorldCat contains an amazing array of materials, including books, magazines, videos, photographs, manuals, catalogs, artifacts, art, music, and so much more. Professional archivists and librarians can catalog any item in their holdings and share with the world. How much material on cars is in WorldCat? A simple search on “Pontiac automobile” shows over 2,000 items. A search on the Packard Cormorant newsletter shows that nine libraries hold it. Google is a great tool, and all of us use it, but its flaw is the advertising-driven results, and the vast majority do not look at more than the first page.
So, what does WorldCat do for you, the searcher? Each record will contain the name of the creator, a description, type of materials, dates, and when available, links to any online content. For example, Ball State University added a WorldCat record to the racetrack crash photos of Muncie, Indiana native Lloyd Masing taken between 1960-1975 and the record links to the online source at Ball State. I like looking at early road maps, and I came across a record for New England roads published in 1920 by Scarborough Motor Guide Co., with links to the online content. Anytime WorldCat links to free, online sources you will always see a blue button saying, “Access free.” Each bibliographic record contains the names and locations of the libraries that hold the item, so if you can plan a research trip well in advance. Any user can create a free account and add items to their own lists. You can even create automatic citations to the materials (what a boon for writers!).
The sheer volume of information in WorldCat is both thrilling and daunting. For example, I love the silent era of films. I randomly ran across a downloadable article called If Men Can Do It, Then So Can a Woman: Inspiring Determination through Service-Learning and Silent Movies about Anita King, an early stunt driver and actress. I knew of King, “The Paramount Girl,” but the article describes an exhibit of cars, artifacts, and photos that brought King’s story to life. She achieved fame as the first woman to drive an automobile solo across the United States, traveling from California to New York in 1915 to promote her studio. FYI: the first movie with a car chase is a 1903 British silent film Runaway Match, a 5-minute short film depicted a couple eloping with a wealthy father pursuing them in his car. Can our readers identify the cars? Barney Oldfield’s 1913 Race for a Life is a 13-minute movie notable for the plot of a villain tying a young damsel to the tracks of an oncoming locomotive. Oldfield rightly thought the movie was bad, but it is worth a watch on YouTube. Both movies are also be found on WorldCat. Of course, research takes you down rabbit holes. For more on the villain and the damsel in distress, see Eric Grunhauser’s The Myth of the Damsel on the Railroad Tracks in the atlasobscura.com (not linked on WorldCat). I grew up watching Rocky and Bullwinkle, and I had no idea that Snidely Whiplash tying Nell Fenwick to the tracks, only to be saved by Dudley Do-Right, was a spoof on a trope. I was more fascinated by that Pottsylvanian nogoodnik Boris Badenov wrecking his cars while trying to get moose and squirrel.
There are three challenges to using WorldCat. First, the sheer volume of information can be daunting, and I find using the advanced search features immensely helpful, if not essential. (This is certainly true for Google as well). Using the AND OR NOT features in advanced searching is handy. For example, I may want to search on Packard but not Packard computers or David Packard. (All search engines have the same feature.) Second, because the members of OCLC export their data into WorldCat there can be duplication of information. Even the slightest change in a bibliographic record can cause duplication. OCLC “dedups” millions of records per year, but the duplication problem is annoying. The third challenge is the lack of automobile museum libraries that participate. Only several automobile museums worldwide are members of OCLC. Academic, government, and public libraries often did not collect much material pertaining to automobiles, so there can be a surprising dearth of materials available in WorldCat. Why aren’t more automobile libraries participating? The answer mostly comes down to costs for OCLC membership and professional staff.
WorldCat is a remarkable search tool that all members of SAH can use. It is comprehensive, free to use, and a great tool for finding remarkably rich universe of information. Spending a little time on WorldCat is worth your while, and research nirvana. Figure out a good search strategy and have fun. As Boris Badenov says, “I’ve always got plan! They don’t ever work, but I’ve always got one!” WorldCat links to all the records found in the HathiTrust and Internet Archive, the subjects for my next newsletter article. Happy motoring and searching! (mv)