"The Engineer"

Q: Does anybody know if the publication "The Engineer" from the 19th century is available on line anywhere? I know its a long shot. I have searched many sources already.

A: I just checked the local university library card catalogs. There are three publications by that name -- one by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, still in print, one published by Western Electric (former title Western Electric Engineer, and also still in print) and a third published in London by Morgan-Grampian, apparently also still in print. Cal State Long Beach has this on microfilm going back to 1927. If looking for it in your local library, the LC Card No. is TA 1 E5. Whoops, there's more. Searching University of California card catalog, there's another published in Bombay by the Mechanical Engineers' Association. Several others as well. Too many to list. Assuming you want the London

magazine, U of Cal says it started in 1856, and it's weekly. Catalog says U of Cal Berkeley v.1(no.1, 1856)- ; "Library lacks: many issues". Stanford also goes back to Vol 1. CRL (Center for research libraries) lists Vol.1 - Vol 88 (1856-1899) but I'm not sure that's a physical library; it's run out of U of Chicago and may just index cited journals without actually having access to them. Nobody is going to put this stuff into digital format. There's just no demand or market for it. In other words, you're going to have to do some legwork to find what you need. Chances are a good (older) technical university in your area has it and you can go in and use it for free.