Unlocking the Garage: A Web Portal for Car Enthusiasts

In sheds, under houses and in back paddocks across Australia, elderly automobile bodies sit waiting for dedicated car enthusiasts to restore them to their former glory. To judge by the number of car clubs around the nation, classic car owners are out there in their thousands - needing wiring diagrams, needing brake specifications - and needing help from librarians. Intending classic car restorers come to the library fired by hope and optimism, only to meet with disappointment when a standard repair manual cannot be located. Over many years the State Library of Queensland has built up a substantial collection of potentially useful works relating to vehicles manufactured between 1900 and 1970. Until recently, this much sought after information, secreted away in bland looking compendium manuals with unrevealing titles, was a secret known only to the initiated few. In 2005 the State Library took the opportunity to bring together the ten year indexing effort of two remarkable volunteers, a fascinating collection of historically significant photographs and a little technical innovation to develop the popular Garage web portal. This paper considers the opportunities inherent in opening up high demand areas in library collections, the philosophy of sharing expertise in the community with the library's wider public and the technical challenges involved in converting a set of unrealised assets into a useful, integrated online resource.