By Natalia Gonzalez Blanco Serrano ’24
A recent donation to Northwestern’s Transportation Library just made it the only institution in the United States with complete holdings of Der Stadtverkehr (“City Transport”). The journal has over 400 published issues, all of which are now accessible to Library visitors.
“I’m excited to be able to provide a full run of this journal to our patrons. Unique journals are among the great strengths of our collection. A recent collection assessment determined that some 54% of our holdings are unique to our library, and this donation helps enrich those distinctive holdings,” said Transportation Library head Rachel Cole.
The journal is a specialist magazine for public transit officials in German-speaking countries that was first published in 1956. Ten issues are published a year, and topics include developments in the vehicle sector, operational management, technology, planning projects and reporting on trade fairs and conferences. It also spotlights emerging technologies, such as the suspended monorail system that went into operation in Germany in the early 20th century. Though its focus is mostly European, it sometimes touches on the U.S. and the world at large as well.
“Our holdings were from 1963-1965 and 1970-1989, so this was a nice way of filling in the gaps of that collection,” Cole said . “They’re beautifully bound and in excellent shape.”
The magazines were donated by David Warner (BSCE ‘76, MS ‘78), a former student in the Department of Civil Engineering, who currently works in the transit industry. He has authored multiple books on Amtrak’s history. So, it’s no surprise that when it came time to find a new home for his esoteric periodical collection, Northwestern was the first place that came to mind.
Other U.S. institutions that hold copies include the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, MIT, Wayne State, and a couple of transit agencies. And around the world, it is held in Shanghai, Australia, Canada, and England.
In addition to the now-complete collection of Der Stadtverkehr, the Transportation Library has a host of other periodicals detailing niche developments in the history of transit and civil engineering.
“Flight Log was the Association of Flight Attendants’ newsletter that addressed issues of the day for flight attendants — the first maternity uniforms for flight attendants, and women in the workforce,” said Cole.
Concrete Opposition was published by the Highway Action Coalition (HAC) in the 1970s opposing highway construction for the betterment of public transit. HAC called for changes to the Highway Trust Fund, which earmarked billions of dollars for highway development.
“The goal was to secure a portion of that money to fund public transit instead,” Cole said. “In the end, [HAC] won a compromise that allowed for funds to be used for transit!”
Hovercraft World and Hovering Craft and Hydrofoil, as the names suggest, focus on air cushion vehicles and hydrofoils. Both periodicals emphasize developments in technology and new materials and vehicles that were being released at the time.
“Since [the Transportation Library’s] beginning, we’ve been really tied in to the research that the Transportation Center works on, usually on innovations in transportation technology,” said Cole. “So it’s exciting to be able to share these [resources]— they’re very little known and I think not used as much as they could be.”
Natalia Gonzalez Blanco Serrano is a Medill School of Journalism graduate student.