Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / How Revs Institute Is Reimagining the Future of Automotive History (Arthur Carlson)

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How Revs Institute Is Reimagining the Future of Automotive History (Arthur Carlson) · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

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Break Fix's History of Motorsports Series is brought to you in part
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by the International Motor Racing Research Center, as well as the
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Society of Automotive Historians, the Watkins Glen Area Chamber of
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Commerce, and the Arge Singer family.
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On today's episode of The Logbook, our History of Motorsports series,
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we're diving into the future of automotive history and the man
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leading one of the most ambitious archival transformations in the field.
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Arthur Carlson, director of Archives and Research operations at the renowned
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Revs Institute in Naples, Florida joins us to share how innovation is
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reshaping the way we preserve and explore the story of the automobile.
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Arthur will take us behind the scenes of Revs new archives and research center
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and reveal how emerging technologies from artificial intelligence to
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machine learning are unlocking richer metadata, smarter discovery tools, and
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more meaningful access to the culture and history of cars and motor sports.
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With a career rooted in expanding access to archival resources and fresh
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off, presenting his work on digital repositories at the International
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Dickens Symposium in Birmingham, England.
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Arthur brings a unique perspective on how the past and future meets in the stacks.
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So buckle up.
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We're about to explore how cutting edge tech is driving
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innovation in automotive archives.
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Good morning everybody.
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Thank you for, uh, having me here today.
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My name is Arthur Carlson and I oversee the operations of the new Archives
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and Research Center at Revs Institute.
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So I'm here to share some of the exciting news, talk about what the
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center represents and the opportunities we hope it can provide for those
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here in attendance joining us online.
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And anyone else that may be interested in furthering the field of scholarship in
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his historic and significant automobiles.
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So I guess to really back up and understand momentous achievement,
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let's start talking initially about the library program at Revs, which many
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of you are likely familiar with owing to our Revs digital library, which has
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approximately 724,000 photographs online.
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So originally the library room started as a, a supporting element of the
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Miles Collier automobile collection.
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So most of the material was related to supporting the maintenance care
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and curation of the collection, or understanding the historical significance
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of the automobiles that he had collected.
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Eventually as they added other things like the Briggs Cunningham archives,
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the archival collections of several photographers, and then other printed
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material, including now more than 28,000 Monographic books and over
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100,000 magazines and journals.
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We have created what we think is one of the most extensive
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research resources for this field.
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We've also added art and automobilia and film and audio.
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Eventually we filled our space and as demand for other offerings,
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including the new gallery that Lauren will be overseeing at Res Institute.
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They kicked us out, so they took me and all the archivists and
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they packed us up and they shipped us 20 miles north of Fort Myers.
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And they stuck us in the archives and research center.
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So it's actually a, a brand new facility and two facilities
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technically, because it is actually a building inside of another building.
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So we built a archival storage facility to Amazon data center specifications.
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So it's got zero vertical penetrations, a full Siemens latex.
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It is category five, hurricane rated.
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It's a fluoro K fire suppression system, which is a state-of-art fire suppression
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system, and we were so happy with that.
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We just slapped another building over the top of that, built
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to the same specifications.
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So it is probably the most environmentally secure building in
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southwest Florida because our major threat is sea level rise and water.
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Uh, we tower above the local population at approximately 30 feet above sea level.
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So, uh, we, we, we will be the last place to flood.
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So when the hurricane, the next hurricane hit.
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Uh, you can see where I'll be hanging out with, with the dogs.
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So it's a full compact storage system, 14 feet high in both the
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standard stacks and the cold storage room, which is where we'll keep
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nitrate film and other materials.
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That are at risk for vinegar syndrome and things like that, we're gonna
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implement a full digitization lab that can support up to FAUJI four standards.
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So for those of you familiar with sort of digitization standards,
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that is essentially the highest level of professional digitization.
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So it would allow our materials and resources to be utilized
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in any sort of new media.
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Virtual augmented reality purposes, 4K, eight k, high,
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definite, whatever you want.
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So we're really looking at that, trying to be conscious of future planning for
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our presentations and things like that.
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Creating a visiting researcher area, we're about 25 minutes from RSW,
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which is the region's largest airport.
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Between Miami and Orlando.
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So convenient for those of you coming down.
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Now we understand the expectation of 21st century researcher
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behavior is initially digital born.
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So that is actually what we're working to do, is that we're working to
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create access pathways so that we can really open up to a global audience.
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So we'll talk a little bit more about that.
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And also, if you'll notice, the bottom shot there is actually our, our workspace.
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So it's a fully modular workspace.
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Every single thing in that room can be moved, customized, put together,
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spread apart, broken together.
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So it allows us to handle a variety of things, oversized materials, print art.
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As a matter of fact, Lauren has commandeered a few of our tables.
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She's got the, uh, print of noted photographer and fine arts, Jesse
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Alexander spread out all over the place.
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So that'll be a exhibit debuting in 2026.
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So we're very excited for those opportunities it represents, but it,
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it, it is a really wonderful space.
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So, uh, we encourage you, if, if you're ever down southwest
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Florida, please reach out.
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Come down, visit us or check us out online.
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One of the exciting things that we talk about the center representing is it
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really is a foundational platform in which we can scaffold up our resources.
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One of the ones that we're most excited about is our AI and machine
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learning metadata generation tool.
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So we partnered with the consortium of Metro ai, which is a service
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of the New York Public Library.
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And what we are doing is we're implementing a car recognition model,
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facial recognition model that uses insight face, which is the same technology that
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powers Apple iOS sort of face unlocked.
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So how the system works, so if we start with the machine learning for the cars,
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is that essentially we take cars, we upload them with our known metadata,
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and then we create clusters around them.
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So for instance, we'll use the example of Porsche, so we can
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upload Porsches and then we can upload every single model they make.
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And then we can make a giant cluster that's Porsche, and then we can
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take the individual models, 9 11, 9 17, 5 fifties, whatever we want.
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We can make those individual models and we can make them to that, and then
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we can do 'em through generations.
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Phase one, phase two specific races.
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You can make the clusters as broad or as tightly granular as you want.
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Once you do that, we feed them into our machine learning system, which
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goes and it begins to identify those clusters and create relational
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patterns through the metadata.
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So if it recognizes that every car in the cluster, a Porsche, it starts
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to create these relational polygons.
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So it creates polygons that overlays over the images to create scaled relationships.
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What's the measure of the tire?
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What's the angles of the headlights?
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What's the angles of the cars and things like that.
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So it's a pretty interesting thing.
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And then what it does is it generates a confidence score that these are the images
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based on similar relational polygons.
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So we're using four different AI models.
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We're actually using three.
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One we run in a grayscale and a monochrome 'cause we've actually
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found that the machine learning gets tricked by certain things.
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The association with red and the marked Ferrari is so strong that any
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red car gets tagged as a Ferrari.
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So there, there are little quirks.
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So that's why we ran the grayscale programs to see if by eliminating that
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RGB element, could we kind of reduce that bias in the AI and machine learning tool.
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So it's a pretty interesting thing to understand.
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The other thing that we're finding is that we have a limited sample source.
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So as we know with automobile photography and advertising, they
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take it from what, three angles.
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You see the front, you might see the side, you may see the back, depending, right?
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Same thing with motorsport.
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The photographers stand in certain areas of the track.
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The cars are depicted from the same angles, and of course it's motor sports.
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The cars tend to be heavily modified, so they, they kind of make bad samples.
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But as I mentioned earlier, as I keep stressing, we use relational polygons.
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Relational polygons scale.
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We happen to have over a hundred thousand scale model cars.
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So one of the interesting things that we're now doing is we're starting to
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3D image, all of our scale model cars.
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To use them as a controlled variable group to better train
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the AI machine learning element.
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What we will do is once the machine learning reaches a confident score
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of 90% on images, we deploy it to retroactively apply enhanced metadata
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to the more than 725,000 images we have on our public display and the 1.6
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million awaiting full scale digitization.
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So what that will do is enhance access and discovery, and increase use of our
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materials and create a better resource.
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For our entire industry and field, similar to the car recognition model,
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we're actually employing the, uh, same technology that I mentioned,
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apple uses to better recognize faces, humans, characters, and things
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like that depicted in the images.
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Sharing the example last night that we have an image in our
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collection and it says Laguna Seka.
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All right, cool.
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Says Laguna.
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It's got a year.
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It's not a car in the, it's picture.
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Paul Newman, you know, but nowhere does his name.
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Nowhere does that metadata index.
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So unless you stumbled across that picture of Paul Newman, you'd never find it.
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But the AI found it for me because we ran Paul Newman's
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face through the insight thing.
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I sent it into the sample store and I said, find me anyone that looks like him.
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And it brought back a lot.
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So this is actually actually an example of how it works.
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So it overlays a box over the search.
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So that's when we did a Ricardo Rodriguez.
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I said, find me everything you can of him.
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And you'll see over on the right hand side that this is actually, I,
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I cropped out a little bit of it.
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You actually notice it's got two relevance confidence scores.
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The top one is the face thinks with about approximately 85% confident score
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that that image is Ricardo Rodriguez.
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You'll notice the relevant score that's related to other metadata.
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The relevant score is lower than the confidence score because we
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had a lack of relevant metadata.
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So because we didn't apply a lot of metadata to the field, it can't
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ascertain it if that's actually him.
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Funny enough, that things so good, it picks up his brother Pedro.
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Sometimes we're actually farther ahead with training the image learning model.
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Then the car recognition model, mostly owing to the limitations I mentioned, plus
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it, it's a sample size issue, is that, you know, if you think of every car made,
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every car that's raced over the last 140 years, it, it's really just a scale issue.
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So what we're finding is that reducing the sample size, limiting the scope of
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the project is achieving deeper results.
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So we look forward to working more with that.
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One of our other things that we're working on is an oral history program.
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So we've partnered with the non-oral history center at the University
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of Kentucky, this nation's premier oral history academic outfit.
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And what we're doing with them is we're employing two new
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technologies they created.
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Aviary and Whisper.
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Those are both AI related tools that enhance access through live
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language translation, full text, transcription, and linked data.
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The live language translation is pretty interesting.
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What it can do is take the interviews that are recorded in
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the interviewee's native language.
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In our case, primarily English, but it can convert it to most of the major languages
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supported by Google AI's translation app.
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So it makes it rarely accessible.
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The other thing it does is it runs a full scale transcription.
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That is timestamped and that it also creates, if it
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identifies a link data agent.
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So link data is a concept that really is championed by the Library of Congress.
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And it's this idea that certain elements and fields have a controlled
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vocabulary list, controlled elements.
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If we can add those controlled elements in, it can talk to other organizations,
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institutions, or records within our own collections that have that same agent
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or name authority and tie them together.
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So for instance, this is actually, um, ours are uploaded jets.
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So this is one that I stole from the University of Kentucky.
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That's Steve Za talking about bourbon.
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Interestingly enough.
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But in using that example, so when he mentions like bourbon and you stop the
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transcription, you pause the tape and you pull up the text, anything that
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has a link data will be hyperlinked.
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So then you can click on that and it'll basically tie to
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all of our other resources.
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So if you're doing something with Ricardo Rodriguez and you click on that
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history where somebody talks about.
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His death, it'll pull up anything related to that element.
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It'll pull up his biography, it'll pull up news stories, it'll pull up
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images, it'll pull up anything we have, not only in our collections, but
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anybody tied to our discovery system.
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So what we hope to do with the, uh, oral history collection is to really
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go out over the next year and to kind of try to identify folks, partners
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that can help us identify, as we were mentioned, that tacit knowledge, that
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at risk data, that at risk material.
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Yesterday, uh, they let me ride around Bill Green, which was so interesting and
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we, we were stopping just, you know, all through the old road course pathway and
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he was just saying things like, oh, you see that green ball up in the tree there?
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You know, in 19, and it's just, who else but him is really gonna know that?
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Who else but him is gonna understand that, that knowledge up things, those
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things that really talk about the history, the culture of those strong
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experiences that tie us together.
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What we hope to do by announcing basically the program here at this to
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this audience today, is to have each of you kind of engage, help send in
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suggestions, and please understand that it is not simply about most
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important or well-recognized names.
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It's at risk knowledge, so particularly people that represent regional
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events, local shows, local races, even failed attempts at implementing
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car culture, supporting it.
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So please reach out, share your things, and these can be as formal
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as academic soft conversations.
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We really just want to create a resource.
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That shares and preserves that knowledge.
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So I hope that you all can help us with that.
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Finally, talking about some other, uh, exciting things.
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We're actually resuming our digitization program.
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Some of you that are frequent users are RDL and probably noticed that
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sometime during the, the pandemic that we kind of stopped uploading new images.
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So we're actually reviving that.
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So we just sent out the Andre Von Beaver Collection, who is the noted Belgian
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photographer to have over a hundred thousand new images coming online.
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Soon.
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Following that we'll send out Jesse Alexander and some of the other
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collections and things like that.
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So we're very excited about that.
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Begun the migration to integrated online collection guides.
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So for those of you that have been using some of our archival collections,
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those old PDFs, I got rid of 'em all.
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So now we have archive space implemented online collection guides.
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So what you would normally find at a traditional academic institution,
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that same resource, that same value, and again, opening up to the public.
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That is the great thing, is we're trying to remove any barriers to access to
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use our materials that we can identify.
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And eliminate.
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Another thing is we just required a couple of new collections, so
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we're working to get those online.
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The most recent collection that we obtained was the Stru McMinn collection,
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so we picked that up at auction.
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Stru McMinn is widely regarded as the most influential and important
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American automotive designer.
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It's a really interesting collection as we've kind of gone through it.
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There's concept cars, there's correspondence, and more than anything
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it reveals the vast alumni network of his students that have become major
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executives, major influencers and entrepreneurs in the field of automotives.
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So it, it's a pretty interesting collection.
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As I mentioned, the Jesse Alexander collection, fine
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art print will go on display.
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We'll also add the other collections up to our materials as well.
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Jack Bullard, which is a really interesting collection for more
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than 40 years, Jack Bullard responded to car accidents.
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He was a a tow truck operator, so it's a really interesting thing.
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We think material scientists, vehicle safety studies, really just trying
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to open up new and exciting things.
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We're actually expanding our, uh, digital library.
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So right now the Revs digital library is primarily photographs, so we're looking
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to add manuscript collections, digitized material that has out of copyright.
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So some of those early journals, some of those things like that.
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Like I said, just trying to enhance access to our resources.
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And then finally, and this is probably most exciting, we're actually working
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to create a, basically a consortium of anyone that is interested in
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kind of helping create standards of discovery, standards of digitization.
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Link data resources and things like that, so that's very exciting.
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The articles incorporation were just drawn up by our lawyer, so it'll
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actually be a 5 0 1 C six incorporated in the state of Florida, which is
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essentially a chamber of commerce.
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What we hope to do is create a shared discovery catalog and
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a shared digital repository.
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So the idea being that each individual institution that joins the consortium.
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Can keep their individual identities, can keep all their processes, but upload their
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materials into a shared discovery layer.
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As we mentioned earlier, the 21st century researcher behavior does not want to go
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to 30 places to look for information.
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They wanna go to one source.
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It's the ification of American Discovery.
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All right?
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It's that one source concept, and it's something that you
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find increasing in academia.
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It's one source, wonderful.
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You know, even if you look at, you know, databases now, databases
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don't get searched individually.
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They get searched through crawlers.
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We really want to implement that same idea, is that if you can
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go to a consortium website, that you can search the collections
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of every one of our members.
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So we hope for those of you that might be interested right now, there's no
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obligations, expressions of interest.
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We've got about 25 organizations across the United States and two now in Western
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Europe, which is really exciting.
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That are interested in following along, you know, if that's something that you
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or your organization might be interested in, at least following along with,
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please see me or Lauren and we'll make sure we get added to the listserv.
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So it's really exciting.
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As I mentioned, we're incorporating the state of Florida as the group for
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archival research and global exchange.
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Which spells out garage.
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I thought of that all myself.
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So you're, you're welcome for my contributions to
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automotive history already.
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So that's a really exciting thing, but that's something that we really want
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to talk to folks about and to really share and, and, and elevate the field
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so that, that's something I think that's really exciting and something that I
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hope that we can work with each of you.
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And as I mentioned, this is something that we see as building a resource so
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it's something open to conversation.
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In no way do I want to drive what happens with this thing.
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What I really want to do is understand what are the
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research needs of our audience?
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What are the research needs?
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You know, what can we do to expand our offerings?
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You know, so many of you here have already said.
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What can we do to increase support for scholarship in this field?
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And so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to sort
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of soft launch that program.
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I'm really excited to talk about that, to share that, to build networked
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interest and things like that.
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So very, very exciting stuff.
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As I mentioned, I, I thought that this would be more opportunities for
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free exchange, so I left a little extra time for q and a because I'm
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sure you have a lot of questions and I thought that seeing as we couldn't
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give a live demo, that I might have the opportunity to explain in more detail
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for any questions that you might have.
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Yeah.
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Thank you so much.
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Yes.
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Thank you everybody.
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Thank you.
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What, what I'm really hearing is that you're making my life easier.
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That's what I'm hearing and that's what I, I'm looking forward to.
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That's exactly what we're here to do.
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I am not an expert in this field, but if I understand what is the information
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needs that the field requires, we can build those systems in conjunction with
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our partners, collaborators, friends and and supporters across the world.
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So I think now we're open up for, um, a q and a. If, uh, someone has historical
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documents to, uh, you know, donate, how would you decide where to send it?
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You have the A a CA, the SAH, and the Res Institute.
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Are you looking for specific types of documents?
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I think a lot of that depends on the donor and a lot of cases,
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donors really have a, a wish.
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You know, there's usually a place that either is their home track,
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their home region, maybe a, an association that they have a stronger
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affiliation with than others.
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You know, they may have a natural place in mind.
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Now, what we aim to do with that consortium is to make sure that
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if you come to any one of us.
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That we understand what are the collecting specialties?
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What are sort of the talent support of each of the organizations in our field
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to help donors find the best home.
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We don't view this as a competition amongst organizations in any way.
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What we see this as, as a way to really build in that collegiality.
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That you see in like academic consortiums, academic conferences and things like
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that, where they help you understand, this is super great, this definitely needs
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to preserve, but hey, maybe you should go see my friend Joe at Watkins Glen,
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because they have all the SECA stuff and this is more closely aligned with that.
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And, and it really, it depends on the capacity, you know, if they're
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out of room, what, what do we find?
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So I think it's, it's really just trying to foster better communication amongst
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our institutions and organizations.
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And then the other advantage I see, and, and this is probably
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leaning a little over my.
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Skis is one of the reasons that they plucked me down to Revs is I used to
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sit on the Eastern Academic Scholars Trust Consortium that is a, um, an
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organization of academic institutions from the University of Maine down
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to the University of Florida and all up and down the Mid-Atlantic.
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And what it was, was they were the first ones to get into the idea of special
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collections and archival research sharing.
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So how can you share these things that traditionally have been so guarded and so
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maintained that you had to ask permission, then get access to look at 'em, and then
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while you're looking at 'em, somebody was looking at you, looking at 'em.
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So really how can we dispel those barriers and create, like I said,
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better agreement, better thing.
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But that's a great question and one that I'm glad that somebody
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asked because I think that's an important point to make is that it's
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all about building collaboration.
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Thank you for, for that.
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Um, I'm very fortunate that I live close to the Revs and I've used it many
20:34
times and it's been really important to.
20:37
So just a couple of very quick questions.
20:39
Number one, are you now open for research?
20:41
Is the facility open?
20:42
Yes.
20:42
So we are by appointment only, but if you wanna reach out to, as I mentioned,
20:46
library@reinstitute.org, we can support research and things like that.
20:49
We moved during three weeks in the middle of hurricane season in Florida
20:52
and didn't get rained on once.
20:53
We were just smart and avoided the daily 2:33 PM 15 minute, yeah.
20:57
Deluge.
20:59
And so secondly, uh, my institution, we used to have, uh, interns
21:02
working there before the pandemic.
21:04
Yeah.
21:04
So are you gonna start that up again, or, I'm glad that you asked that as well.
21:07
So, uh, one of the main tasks I was engaged with by Mr.
21:09
Collier was re-engaging the academy.
21:11
So I've actually been in consultation with Florida Gulf Coast University
21:14
in Florida, Southwest College.
21:16
So we'll actually have service learning students from Florida
21:18
Gulf Coast University that'll begin working with us in the spring.
21:21
So they'll be us with about 80 hours each working on basically their pickup
21:25
projects, Florida Southwest College.
21:27
We're also hoping to implement the same thing.
21:28
They have a more formal internship program, so I'll have a few of those
21:31
interns and excitingly, we're also hosting a library fellow, so we'll have one of
21:36
the, uh, archivists in training from Florida Southwest College that'll be
21:38
embedded with us for 20 hours a week for about eight weeks to kind of help learn
21:43
digital preservation and things like that.
21:44
At my prior institutions, I used to host library science information graduate
21:48
students from the University of Rhode Island, Simmons University, Florida State.
21:51
We're actually, uh, in talks with those individuals.
21:54
We actually have a graduate student for Simmons that's an intern now.
21:56
We had a student intern from, um, McPherson College
22:00
in Kansas over the summer.
22:01
And I'm trying to convince him to move back to Florida when
22:03
he graduates and work for us.
22:05
So that's actually engaging.
22:06
The academy is actually one of the, literally it says that
22:09
on Mr. Collier's vision board.
22:10
That is something that we are, um, tasked with doing specifically, I think, I
22:14
think Paul wants to know if his people at Alpha Maria could come down Yes.
22:16
And maybe do a little.
22:18
Absolutely, we'd love to have 'em.
22:20
Our founder sees it as important that re institute is not something
22:23
that supports just the automotive community, but raises educational
22:26
opportunities for Southwest Florida.
22:28
And one last question.
22:29
Uh, are you gonna open the full Joel Finn archive?
22:32
I know you have a lot that's actually on the list for 26 processing.
22:36
So I mentioned we have a graduate student from Simmons University, which is a
22:39
major library and information science.
22:40
School in Boston, so we're actually moving her to full time as soon as she
22:44
gets done on the Pete Biro collection.
22:46
Joel Fins up next.
22:47
Alright, Arthur, I'm probably one of the few people who actually
22:50
understood what you talked about.
22:52
I'm a models and simulation person.
22:53
That's been my background story of technology.
22:56
I'm really excited about this.
22:58
I think a lot of people here, this is quite right over their
23:01
heads, but this is where those who behind us, those old folks.
23:08
This is what's gonna make what we have strived for.
23:13
I know Mark and I can go around the room.
23:15
Paul, all of us who've been laboring in the vineyards to make motor sports
23:20
history relevant, this colostrum, which will I think it developed.
23:26
Allison's another one I'm looking at.
23:28
This is called open doors.
23:30
I really think so.
23:31
God.
23:32
George said something to me years and years ago that he had all kinds of plans
23:36
and got, you know, things going on.
23:38
And I've talked with a number of people that I love revs just
23:42
like I like the research center, but this is a step forward.
23:46
And anything that I think those of us in the room can do something
23:51
to support, think we're on board.
23:53
That that's, that's exactly what we hope to hear.
23:55
As everyone has made a point, this has not been a traditional academic field,
23:58
so it's been one that's been cared for by fans, collectors, enthusiasts, hobbyists,
24:03
people that have a real love for it.
24:04
And that's probably what I've noticed more than anything making the
24:06
transition from academia over into this field is the enthusiasm I feel.
24:11
Just how.
24:12
Sighted.
24:12
Everyone gets about this stuff and you know, and I think
24:15
that that's that passion.
24:16
If we can harness that passion and really just implement these tools and resources
24:21
that already exist in other fields and put them onto ours, you know, I think we
24:24
can just open up so many opportunities to really elevate everything.
24:27
Lauren Arthur, thank you very much.
24:30
Even though the, uh,
24:33
the research center in Revs is separated physically by, I don't know, 12, 1500
24:37
miles, I've always thought we had a bit of a spiritual connection with you
24:40
folks, and I think with Margaret's recent visit down there, I'm hoping it becomes
24:43
more than that, but you folks are at the forefront of all of this, and as you can
24:46
tell, we're all very excited about it.
24:48
So thank you very much for coming up here and doing the presentation.
24:51
We appreciate it.
24:52
Thank you so much.
24:53
We really appreciate it.
25:02
This episode is brought to you in part by the International
25:05
Motor Racing Research Center.
25:08
Its charter is to collect, share, and preserve the history
25:12
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The Center's collection embodies the speed, drama and camaraderie
25:22
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