Every year, the Metro Transportation Research Library & Archive hosts dozens of researchers from all over the greater Los Angeles region (and sometimes, even further afield!). Professors conducting book research. Students working on masters’ theses and doctoral dissertations. Journalists. Transit enthusiasts. Environmental planners. I have used the Metro Archive and Library for my own research quite a bit myself!
There’s nothing like being in an archive. Sorting through a cardboard box full of documents is a little like opening a time capsule. You get a rush from the familiar smell of old paper and leafing through faded black and white photographs. While our agency might still be in its early thirties, our archival holdings were inherited from the libraries of our predecessor agencies dating back 120 years. In our archives, you’ll find a long and rich history of transportation in the Greater Los Angeles area, full of stories that haven’t yet been told.
“Over the past year, I’ve met researchers from all over the city, and even the country!” Claire Kennedy, Metro’s archivist, told me. “Whenever I help locate resources for younger researchers, I learn about new ways that students are thinking about the past.”
There are over 40,000 books and periodicals in the library’s collection. You can see the catalog of the collection here. The Metro Library and Archives is also the keeper of various archival collections, such as board correspondence, more than 100 years of employee news magazines, and documented research, diagrams, and meeting notes of transit projects that never came to be, like the monorail plans for downtown Los Angeles. And that doesn’t include the vast collection of historic photographs on the Library and Archive’s Flickr account and videos on the department’s Youtube channel.
Nor is the collection static. Quite the contrary! “In many ways, the researchers who use us are helping us build our collection,” says Alanna Marcelletti, Metro’s cataloguing librarian. “We have the opportunity to supplement our collection based on information requests, and through the process of providing assistance, we’re learning why and how that information is applied.”
I was curious how scholars have used our collection for their own research projects, so I called a few of them up. Here’s what I learned:
Stephanie Zhang
Occupation: Graduate student at UCLA
Research topic: The disappearance of rail transit in Los Angeles.
How did you get interested in this topic? Last year, I moved from the East Coast to Los Angeles for graduate school without a car. I live in Westwood, so I had to take a bus and two Metro lines in order to reach Union Station. Spending an hour commuting each way gave me a lot of time to think about why transit exists where it does.
What materials have you consulted in the library? In addition to digitized maps sent to me from Metro’s Digital Resources Librarian, Chris Salvano, I’ve been looking at newspaper clippings from the late 1940s that document various hearings about plans to replace rail with buses. These provide information over more specific areas and lines that are being contested as well as giving an overview of the general sentiment towards transit during this time.
How are you using this research? I’m currently working on my master’s thesis for UCLA’s sociology department. I’m hopeful that the data set I’m putting together will form the basis for a larger project about transit in Los Angeles.
Jaron Land
Occupation: I’m a student making the switch from community college to CSU. When I’m not in school, I work at a nonprofit called Being Alive Los Angeles, which provides low cost health, wellness and harm reduction programs to people living with HIV or AIDS.
Research topic: Time and urban life
What are you working on? For my major in computer science, I have to take a communications class. It’s all about the transference of energy and data –– ie. people and data moving from one place to another. I was working with Ariel Hahn, Metro’s data librarian, who shared resources that highlight transit’s relationship to time and helped me understand how the agency develops its schedules and responds to industry standards related to switches and signaling –– technologies that concretize how we physically move through time. I’m fascinated by the ways that people move to and from destinations, live their lives, come together in one place and time yet live totally separate lives.
Why is transportation a good way to study time and urban life: Transportation helps us understand the “speed” of cities; like Los Angeles is much faster than Riverside. It also provides you insights into patterns, such as the “regulars” getting to and from work, familiar tourist routes, and people coming together to do and experience one thing, together. Observing these rhythms shows us that time is cyclical.
What materials have you consulted from the Metro Library and Archive? I’ve gotten the chance to consult some pretty fascinating manuals about rail transport and signaling, such as Elements of Railroad Signaling (1979) and civil engineering documents. These have been helpful because it shows how energy, data and thought transfer through energy, frequency, waves and vibrations during certain revolutions/periods in nature and life.
Ethan Elkind
Occupation: Climate Program Director with joint appointments at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law and the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law. He is also the author of Railtown: The Fight for the Los Angeles Metro Rail and the Future of the City (2014).
Research topic: History of Metro Rail
How did you get interested in this topic? I have always been interested in land use and transportation issues – it was one of the reasons why I wanted to go to law school at UCLA. I was frustrated by things like traffic and sprawl and the lack of alternatives to cars. In law school I took a class on California legal history taught by former law school dean Susan Prager, who believed that lawyers – given their research and storytelling skills – were well positioned to be historians, too. At that time, I was spending time stuck in traffic like everyone else in LA and wondering why this was and what had happened to the rail system.
What kinds of documents did you consult in archive? I found the online archive incredibly helpful, where I could read meeting minutes from key agencies, such as the Southern California Rapid Transit District (SCRTD), Los Angeles County Transportation Commission (LACTC), and, of course, Metro. It was fascinating to read the board members’ perspectives and debates around very big decisions. I also found a lot of great photos through Metro’s photo archive. Matt Barrett, Metro’s head librarian, had amassed so much institutional knowledge and eventually became very helpful to the project and publication.
Given all the research you’ve done, what do you think makes Metro unique among transit agencies? For many transit agencies, rail construction frequently stops and starts, with long intervals in between. Metro is one of the few agencies throughout the state and the country where there has been a sustained, multidecade rail building program. The sustained financial commitment from taxpayers has allowed Metro to develop a lot of sophistication when it comes to planning, negotiation, and construction.
Are you interested in the past and present of transportation in Southern California? We’re here as a resource. The Metro Transportation Research Library & Archive is open to the public with an appointment. For questions and to make appointment, email library@metro.net
Discover more from The Source
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.