"Everywhere West": Preserving and Enhancing Access to the Records of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company

FAIN: PW-50757-11

Newberry Library (Chicago, IL 60610-3305)
Martha T. Briggs (Project Director: July 2010 to March 2015)

The arrangement and description of the records of the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad comprising 2,760 linear feet of primary sources for the years 1840-1965, documenting the history of the company and several of its subsidiaries.

The Newberry Library proposes to reappraise, arrange, preserve, describe, and make electronically accessible the records (2,760 linear feet) of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company (CB&Q), 1847-1965. The CB&Q was one of the largest and most significant railroads in the country, controlling transportation over much of the nation between the Mississippi River and the Rockies, and the firm's records are an important resource for scholarship in a wide variety of disciplines. This project will make the CB&Q records physically accessible, and will employ current descriptive standards and exploit the capabilities of Encoded Archival Description to improve intellectual access and attract a diverse community of users.