FROM PRINT TO PIXELS
Autocar’s entire collection of back issues has been painstak ingly digitised into a searchable librar y that documents the whole histor y of the motor car. Matt Prior finds out how it was done
Archive Digital Ltd refined its process to capture every page
PHOTOGRAPHY MAX EDLESTON
THE SOURCE The nearly million pages of Autocar exist in leather-bound volumes of original magazines. When an office move was required, several vanloads and many hands were required.
The moment it moved on from a ‘wouldn’t it be great if…’ conversation to something more concrete, I might have let out a small yelp of joy.
Taking a trip to the Autocar archive, usually tucked discreetly down some stairs in whichever office Haymarket Media Group has occupied at the time, has been one of the pleasures of working here.
A pleasure denied for too long to too many people. Some libraries and museums have back issues of Autocar, but standing among a full run of issues, which report almost the entire history of the car and which are neatly bound and searchable via handwritten or typed index cards, is a great way to lose an afternoon and miss a deadline. Or two.