Automotive History Photos Available Online From Detroit Public Library

More than 32,000 photos from the National Automotive History Collection (NAHC) are now available on the Internet to news organizations, car enthusiasts and the general public through the Detroit Public Library.

Under development since early 2014, the NAHC’s photo archive is part of the library’s current collection of nearly 70,000 digital photographs.

“Auto enthusiasts from around the world now have direct access to one of the largest selections of digital automotive photography available,” noted Mark Bowden, coordinator of the library’s Special Collections. “We are especially grateful to the library staff, our sponsors and volunteers for helping to make this vast collection of automotive history available online.”

Several organizations and individuals donated funds to the digital photo project, including the National Automotive History Collection’s Board of Trustees, the Detroit Public Library’s Friends Foundation, Nicolas and Diane Quintana, and the MotorCities National Heritage Area.

Bowden noted that many of the library’s digital automotive photos come from the Nathan Lazarnick Collection which is devoted to individual automobiles, motorsports events and drivers, auto shows and manufacturing facilities from the first quarter of the 20(th) century.

Online access to the historical photos is available through the “digital collections” tab on the Detroit Public Library’s website — http://digitalcollections.detroitpubliclibrary.org. The library’s digital collections are being updated and expanded on a continuous basis, Bowden added.

Archived photographs can be viewed and enlarged at the click of a mouse. Each image contains a description and is accompanied by Twitter, Facebook and Google+ social media links to encourage sharing among car lovers.

The National Automotive History Collection is the world’s largest collection of literature, photographs and historic documentation about cars and trucks and the people and companies that produced them.

A department of the Detroit Public Library, the NAHC is open to the public and represents a treasure trove of information for automotive collectors, authors, journalists, historians and enthusiasts. The collection is located at the library’s Skillman branch at 121 Gratiot Ave. in downtown Detroit.

More information about the NAHC is on the Detroit Public Library website at http://www.detroitpubliclibrary.org/featuredcollection/national-automotive-history-collection