Aviation Museum Libraries

[DADE]

Some other details and drawings of the (type, model, variant) of aircraft that did not make big construction runs.

Last edited by DADE on Fri Oct 28, 2022 3:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[DADE]

One sample of a large collection of this Journal, includes a story within it.

Last edited by DADE on Fri Oct 28, 2022 3:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[DADE]

A set of 1930s books/manuals

Last edited by DADE on Fri Oct 28, 2022 3:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[DADE]

One of a large amount of microfiche that to digitize would cost a large amount of money. But using a camera in a cell phone from a microfiche screen gives a reasonable picture for free. The information was not in a good condition at the beginning when it went on to microfiche reels.

The information concerns aircraft in the R.A.A.F. and can amount to one card as they had an accident, or four or five if the pilots looked after them and they had a long flying history.

[Noha307]

One of a large amount of microfiche that to digitize would cost a large amount of money. But using a camera in a cell phone from a microfiche screen gives a reasonable picture for free. The information was not in a good condition at the beginning when it went on to microfiche reels.

Coincidentally, I just had an email conversation with someone at a non-aviation archive about microfilm. He had written a very interesting post covering the idiosyncrasies of the medium. I provided a link to a comparable article from AirCorps Library on the subject as well as a pair of articles (1, 2) showing "before and after" comparisons of effect of wear on microfilm.

To follow up on the archival definitions mentioned in a previous post, I came across some references that made me realize it was missing entries for some graphic documents:

Archival/Library Object Type Definitions (Cont.)

• Artwork - a graphic document created for an aesthetic purpose. Often reproduced in limited numbers as "prints". Contrast with technical drawing, which is scientific.
• Plan view - a graphic document depicting an aircraft from the front, side, and/or top or bottom. Typically used for aircraft recognition, sometimes in poster format. Can be broken down into two different sets of categories based on number of views (one, two, or three) and style (silhouette and line drawing). A one-view drawing of the side is referred to as a profile. Could be considered a subset of technical drawing.
• Technical drawing - a graphic document depicting an aircraft for use in design, construction, maintenance, repair, and/or overhaul. Can be broken down into two different sets of categories based on projection (perspective, isometric, oblique, and exploded) and purpose (detail, assembly, installation, and sectional).[1] Contrast with artwork, which is artistic. Non-preferred term: blueprint.
  
  • Some good explanatory comparisons (1, 2) are available on Wikimedia Commons.

Our museum library is not as sophisticated as others.

I know that everyone isn't able to use these exact definitions, but even if you can't they can still be helpful to think about the way collections are organized. The formerly book-bound Nomenclature for Museum Cataloging is now available online for free at Nomenclature.info and it can also be useful for that purpose. Also, trust me, our collection is nowhere near as organized as this list may seem to suggest.

We try to keep it simple as it can confuse the over 70s volunteers, especially myself.

Since you brought it up, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has an excellent media format identification guide. It's actually quite useful because even though the cliché is that kids are supposed to be good with technology - the reality is that this only refers to modern technology. Personally, between having my dad explain how he used to have to use an offset lithograph press make pamphlets and touring my local printing museum, I realized how much I didn't know about the way things used to be done. So, it's not only old guys that can get confused!

Finally, I recently came across two additional aviation museum libraries/archives:

Libraries (Institution - Name of Collection - Size) (Cont.)

• South Australian Aviation Museum - Library - 3,500 books, 120,000 photographs, 1,000 technical handbooks, 63 periodicals, 700 videos

Archives (Institution - Name of Collection - Size) (Cont.)

• Musee Hydraviation - Centre de Documentation - Unknown

EDIT (22-11-28): Add "sectional" as purpose of technical drawing in object type definitions list.
EDIT (22-12-02): The Drawing Change Manual of the Columbus Division of North American Aviation has a set of standards for drawing aircraft plan views on page 6 that are particularly interesting in light of the attempt to define them above. In particular, it establishes conventions for point of view - such as profiles always have the nose facing left and overhead views always have the nose pointing down.
EDIT (23-01-23): Similar to the above, the Aeronautical Drafting Manual of the Society of Automotive Engineers also has directions on the "arrangement of views" on page A1.04. For example, it also states that profile drawings should face left. I ran into a similar question of conventions when working on the aircraft 3-views project as to what order the drawings should go in from top to bottom when drawn vertically. (e.g. top down, head on, profile)
EDIT (23-04-10): I came across a thread on WW2Aircraft.net today that had links to a number of aircraft manufacturer production drawing "manuals of style".

Last edited by Noha307 on Mon Apr 10, 2023 3:58 pm, edited 5 times in total.

[Noha307]

Another addition to the list:

Archives (Institution - Name of Collection - Size) (Cont.)

• Aeronauticum - Archives - 11,000 printed materials

Scrapbook. Is a must as we have one set of six volumes of these that have newspaper cutouts going back to the beginning of the 1920s
concerning a Western Australian Pioneer who started an airline route before QANTAS did. His name was Norman Brearley.

Thanks for the suggestion. Your post made me realize I was missing a couple entries. I composed the definitions a few months ago, but I kept getting distracted from mentioning them here until now:

Archival/Library Object Type Definitions (Cont.)

• Photo Album - a bound document, often of large or irregular form factor, primarily containing photographs. May overlap with scrapbook.
• Scrapbook - a bound document, often of large or irregular form factor, primarily containing memorabilia and ephemera assembled by the owner. May overlap with photo album.

[Noha307]

Libraries (Institution - Name of Collection - Size) (Cont.)

• Air Victory Museum - Harold Watson, Raymond Sleeper and Stephen Snyder Memorial Library - 3,000 volumes

Also, for anyone interested in seeing more, DADE posted additional pictures of the Aviation Heritage Museum library in a thread from 2019.

[Noha307]

Libraries (Institution - Name of Collection - Size) (Cont.)

• Santa Maria Museum of Flight - Edward J. Horkey Memorial Research Library - Unknown

The following museum doesn't have a dedicated page for its library, but includes it as a section on its historical exhibits page:

Honorable Mentions (Institution - Name of Collection - Size) (Cont.)

• Hickory Aviation Museum - Museum Research Library - Unknown

[Noha307]

I realized that, in compiling this list, I somewhat neglected to consider foreign aviation museums. So a few have been included below:

Libraries (Institution - Name of Collection - Size)

• Flygvapenmuseum - Library - 20,000 books and 700 magazines
• National Model Aviation Museum - Lee Renaud Memorial Library - 5,800 books, over 900 periodical titles
• Royal Air Force Museum - Archive & Library - 64,000+ objects

Archives (Institution - Name of Collection - Size)

• Hubschraubermuseum Bückeburg - Archives - 3,500 books
• Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre - Archives - unknown

The following are non-museum aviation history libraries or museums that don't have a dedicated page for their libraries:

Honorable Mentions (Institution - Name of Collection - Size) (Cont.)

• American Library - Library - 4,000 books
• Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum - Emil Buehler Perpetual Trust Library and Archive - 23,000 books, periodicals, pulp magazines, photographs, art, and archival documents[1][2]
• Wight Aviation Museum - Aviation Library - Unknown

[Noha307]

Libraries (Institution - Name of Collection - Size) (Cont.)

• Massey Air Museum - Library - over 4,100 books

[Noha307]

This time, instead of links to libraries, I thought it would be useful to create a list of pictures of them:

Pictures

• Air Force Museum of New Zealand (Source)
• Air Victory Museum (Source)
• Air Zoo (Source)
• Atterbury-Bakalar Air Museum (Source)
• Atterbury-Bakalar Air Museum (Source)
• British Columbia Aviation Museum (Source)
• Canada Aviation and Space Museum (Source)
• Empire State Aerosciences Museum (Source)
• Flight Path Museum LAX (Source)
• Florida Air Museum (Source)
• Frontiers of Flight Museum (Source)
• Hiller Aviation Museum (Source)
• Historic Aviation Memorial Museum (Source)
• Jimmy Doolittle Air & Space Museum (Source)
• Kansas Aviation Museum (Source)
• MAPS Air Museum (Source)
• MAPS Air Museum (Source)
• MAPS Air Museum (Source)
• Millville Army Air Field Museum (Source)
• National Naval Aviation Museum (Source)
• Oregon Aviation Historical Society & Museum (Source)
• Patuxent River Naval Air Museum (Source)
• Patuxent River Naval Air Museum (Source)
• Patuxent River Naval Air Museum (Source)
• Patuxent River Naval Air Museum (Source)
• Patuxent River Naval Air Museum (Source)
• Patuxent River Naval Air Museum (Source)
• Patuxent River Naval Air Museum (Source)
• Patuxent River Naval Air Museum (Source)
• Patuxent River Naval Air Museum (Source)
• Piper Aviation Museum (Source)
• Planes of Fame Air Museum (Source)
• Planes of Fame Air Museum (Source)
• Poplar Grove Vintage Wings & Wheels Museum (Source)
• Poplar Grove Vintage Wings & Wheels Museum (Source)
• Shearwater Aviation Museum (Source)
• South Australian Aviation Museum (Source)
• South Australian Aviation Museum (Source)
• South Australian Aviation Museum (Source)
• South Australian Aviation Museum (Source)
• South Australian Aviation Museum (Source)
• South Australian Aviation Museum (Source)
• South Australian Aviation Museum (Source)
• Tangmere Military Aviation Museum (Source)
• Tri-State Warbird Museum (Source)
• Western Museum of Flight (Source)
• Western Museum of Flight (Source)
• Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum (Source)
• Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum (Source)

Last edited by Noha307 on Sun Jul 07, 2024 5:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Noha307]

The other day Adam Estes, a volunteer at the Planes of Fame Museum, sent me a number of pictures from the museum's library:

He was also kind enough to visit the Horkey Library at the Santa Maria Museum of Flight that was mentioned in a previous post, but was informed that the museum had sold off, gave away or disposed of the collection. Some of the books went to the local library in Santa Maria, others ended up in the Allan Hancock College Library, another portion was sold at book sales and finally some were damaged by a flood a while ago and simply had to be discarded. The library's former location in the Rocketeer building is now being used to hold the museum's 55% scale homebuilt P-38.

[Noha307]

Honorable Mentions (Institution - Name of Collection - Size) (Cont.)

• Finnish Aviation Museum - Library and Archives - over 10,000 monographs
• Kelch Aviation Museum - Archive & Library - over 10,000 books

Pictures (Cont.)

• Airpower Museum (Source)
• Airpower Museum (Source)
• Airpower Museum (Source)
• Champaign Aviation Museum (Source)
• Moffett Field Historical Society Museum (Source)
• Shearwater Aviation Museum (Source)

Videos

• Shearwater Aviation Museum (Video)

A few notes:

• The Finnish Aviation Museum wrote a blog post about how to search their collection.
• According to a Facebook post, the National Museum of World War II Aviation acquired Dr. William Wolf's 27,000 book library in 2023.
  
  • For reference, the fates of other significant private aviation libraries include, as noted in another thread, Lawrence J. Hickey's collection being split between the Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum and Justin Taylan of Pacific Wrecks and Jeffrey L. Ethel's collection going to the Delaware Aviation Museum.[1]
• The Airpower Museum renamed their book collection the "Mike Gretz Library of Flight" in 2016.[2]
• It is not clear if it is still in existence, but the Manitoba Military Aviation Museum claimed to have over 6,000 titles around 2009.[3]

[Noha307]

I originally had plans for a separate thread showcasing pictures of more generic collections storage, but given that the subjects are so closely related and there is significant overlap I figured it they were worth including here instead:

Pictures (Cont.)

• Aviation Museum of New Hampshire (Source)
• Aviation Museum of New Hampshire (Source)
• Commemorative Air Force (Source)
• Commemorative Air Force (Source)
• Commemorative Air Force (Source)
• Commemorative Air Force (Source)
• Commemorative Air Force (Source)
• Fargo Air Museum (Source)
• Glenn L. Martin Maryland Aviation Museum (Source)
• Greenwood Military Aviation Museum (Source)
• Greenwood Military Aviation Museum (Source)
• Museum of Flight (Source)
• Museum of Flight (Source)
• Museum of Flight (Source)
• Museum of Flight (Source)
• Museum of Flight (Source)
• Museum of Flight (Source)
• Museum of Flight (Source)
• Museum of Flight (Source)
• Museum of Flight (Source)
• Museum of Flight (Source)
• Museum of Flight (Source)
• Museum of Flight (Source)
• Museum of Flight (Source)
• Museum of Flight (Source)
• National Museum of World War II Aviation (Source)
• SFO Museum (Source)
• USAF Airman Heritage Museum (Source)
• USAF Airman Heritage Museum (Source)
• USAF Airman Heritage Museum (Source)
• USAF Airman Heritage Museum (Source)
• USAF Airman Heritage Museum (Source)
• Yankee Air Museum (Source)

Videos (Cont.)

• Museum of Flight (Source)
• Museum of Flight (Source)

EDIT (24-08-18): Add 5 Commemorative Air Force Entries.

Last edited by Noha307 on Sun Aug 18, 2024 8:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Noha307]

An interesting little aside, according to a page on the vendor's website, the Shearwater Aviation Museum purchased a Book2Net Kiosk scanner back in 2016 to digitize some of their collections.