Big-10 Universities Complete Microfilming of Railroad Collections
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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. View list of monographs filmed View list of institutional contacts for purchase or loan of film |
