The GM Media Archives–Past and Future

Glimpses of the Past and Visions of the Future

General Motors Media Archive Fact Sheet

Called one of America's most impressive and significant private resources, the GM Media Archive is thought to be the most comprehensive privately held automobile archive in the world.

The oldest images date from the 1860s, when Opel (one of GM's global divisions) was a sewing machine manufacturer. The newest were shot last week. Altogether, the archive house over five million photographic images, 5,000 motion picture films, and 20,000 videotape masters.

Sparked by an exploding demand for memorabilia and trademark licensing content, and a desire at the executive level to better manage and preserve GM's media assets, the Archive was established in 1993. Staffed by a diverse group of archivists, librarians, digital technicians, automobile historians and photography professionals, the Archive began to digitize and catalog the still photography and to provide reference services to both GM and external clients.

Scope of the Collection

General Motors has been producing automobiles and trucks for almost a hundred years, and nearly every model GM has created can be found in the Archive holdings. The collection not only has GM's North American production vehicles, but also includes extensive holdings from the overseas divisions, such as Opel, Vauxhall, Saab, Holden, Isuzu, etc.

While trucks and automobiles make up the vast majority of the collection, other subjects are well represented, such as GM executives, assemblers, designers, auto shows, motor sports, trains, planes, war production, special events, fashions, celebrities, dealerships and factories. In short, the collection closely mirrors the development and progression of the human experience in the twentieth century.

Services

Over the past ten years, the staff at the GM Media Archive has researched and provided thousands of images for everything from corporate presentations to books, television documentaries, museum and trade show exhibits, as well as news and magazine stories. Due to the vast quantities of material in the Archive, there are countless numbers of images that have never before been seen by the general public, or have been out of circulation since their creation. For a fee, the archivists research a given topic within the collection, obtain corporate and divisional permissions and arrange for copyright licensing of GM's images, to ensure material is protected for use on a given project.

In addition, the GM Media Archive team of product experts is able to provide accurate and detailed descriptions of its images. Unlike a stock house, information about why an image was created and who photographed it can often be provided.

Digitization Project

The General Motors Media Archive is in the process of evaluating every image within its collection. Once an image has been selected, it is identified by a team of automotive product experts, digitized, and loaded into a computer database. The images are then indexed according to content and physical characteristics. This allows GM to preserve its original photography and increase and enhance the access and retrieval of its images. The Archive is also digitizing targeted portions of its motion picture and video collection. This digitization project and the subsequent visual indexing of the images are thought to be the most extensive of its kind in the United States.