Transportation Library research grant on track for the future

Since 2021, the Transportation Library has offered an annual grant for scholars who need to get their hands on physical collections— who, in other words, must travel to Evanston to conduct their research. The award has brought an array of researchers to campus, from an MIT Mobility Initiative fellow investigating the effects of speed limits to a University of Wisconsin– La Crosse professor studying the effects of urban parking enforcement.

This year, longtime Libraries supporter Bob Reynolds ’65, ’70 PhD endowed the grant, permanently enabling these diverse research projects to continue. Reynolds, whose personal research focuses on railway economics, is a committed fan of transportation. In 2016 he established a fund to support the Libraries’ acquisition of materials about American railroads before 1950, which has been used to purchase such historically significant treasures as a photo album documenting early 20th-century track work by the Illinois Central Railroad and a trove of letters from Southern Pacific Railroad agents in the early 1900s. These rarities could easily be the subject of future research grants themselves, said Rachel Cole, head of the Transportation Library.

“Bob is extremely knowledgeable about railroad history,” Cole said. “He engages deeply with the historical record and has expressed an appreciation for printed materials. His support of our grant will encourage others to come here and do the same.”