You Can Look It Up

Trains Magazine General Discussion
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The Big-10 Universities Complete Microfilming of Railroad Collections Four university libraries of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) have just completed the massive project of reformatting a large collection of endangered paper copies of railroad journals and books dating from 1832 to 1975 to archival-quality microfilm. The 46 journal titles (1,319 volumes) and 217 books targeted for this project reflect the history of United States railroads from its beginnings through its Golden Age and into the decline of railroad influence in the mid- to late-twentieth century. Sponsored by a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant, the two-year project involved work by the libraries at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Iowa, Northwestern University, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Availability of the microfilm for both interlibrary lending and purchase will greatly enhance access to these journals and books in cases where the originals are too fragile for circulation, thus, extending and expanding the useful research life of the selected titles for generations to come. The microfilmed titles encompass an extremely wide array of research interests of appeal to a broad range of users, including university faculty and students, independent researchers, corporations and businesses, governmental policy makers, family genealogists, and hobbyists. This project is the latest in the CIC-NEH’s partnership for the preservation of railroad collections and confirms the CIC’s commitment to the preservation of collections at risk.

For further information about the project, a list of journals and books microfilmed, and contact information please visit http://www.library.northwestern.edu/transportation/cic8/cic8.html Roberto A. Sarmiento Head, Transportation Library Northwestern University Library 1970 Campus Drive Evanston, IL 60208-2300

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Thanks for the heads-up! [:)]

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Wow. I would love to access those 70’s files.

There is a library in Chicago which contains quite a bit of CBQ and IC archieves. The name escapes me now but it is a private library on the near north side.

ed

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To all interested individuals, this writer for one would like to recognize an outstanding research resource in the Transportation Library at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL. This facility is generally acknowledged to have one of, if not the, finest collection of transportation material anywhere in the world today. Much of the material in my March 2007 feature, “Trains vs. Trucks” came from the Northwestern Library. In addition to an extraordinary treasure trove of material they also have an absolutely wonderful staff to work with. Jim Giblin.

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Ed, would it be the Newberry Library? I’ve gone in there a couple of times researching Pullman freight-car production.

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Great news

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I’ll have to say, that was a great article! Even though I don’t necessarily agree with the premise that trains and trucks compete with each other (at least in today’s transportation world), the article did a nice job of presenting the cooperative aspects of the two modes, past and present.

[tup]

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First, thanks for the kind words about the article. Second, I would agree with you that the two modes no longer compete for most domestic freight market. To borrow a phrase from the popular culture, one mode is from Venus and the other from Mars. Rail is almost totally a niche player these days, but is quite strong in the niches they operate in. Trucks are now the mode that go everywhere and transport everything.