MIT Libraries News

For its November Object of the Month the Institute Archives and Special Collections displays a sonar chart and other records of Harold “Doc” Edgerton’s search for a Spanish Armada wreck of 1588 in Tobermory Bay, Scotland. Earning an Sc.D. in electrical engineering at MIT in 1931, Edgerton spent the rest of his life at the Institute as teacher, researcher, and head of the Stroboscopic Light Lab. His papers, which include documentation of his development of high-speed photography techniques and equipment for underwater exploration, are available for research in the Institute Archives, Building 14N-118.

Thanks to the generosity of Thomas F. Peterson, Jr. ’57, the MIT Libraries will begin a project to digitize its Vail Balloon Print Collection.  The prints are part of the Vail Collection, originally collected by George Dering, and purchased and given to the Institute in 1912 by Theodore Vail, former president of AT&T and member of the MIT Corporation.

Consisting of over 1200 items, the collection is replete with wonderful images providing visual documentation of man’s vision of flying vehicles and human flight.  Images range from the fanciful to depictions of real events, such as the balloon sent up by the Montgolfier brothers in 1783.  Broadsides, articles, and clippings recount the history of man’s efforts to fly over the last three centuries, relating or commenting on individual efforts – some celebratory and other detailing the fatal results of failures.

The digitization of this premiere collection of prints will allow the world to better access these treasures; it is also a critical first step in their long-term preservation.  The project will also serve as a model for future digitization projects within the Libraries.

In celebration of the written word of E. Cary Brown, former Head of the MIT Economics Department, Dewey Library for Management and Social Sciences (E53-100) is hosting an exhibit of his selected writings from October 10th through October 22nd.

E. Cary Brown, a leading expert on fiscal policy and the economics of taxation, passed away in June of this year. He was a member of the Economics Department from 1947-1986 and its Head from 1965-1983.

The exhibit includes selections of Brown’s work, including books, book chapters, journal articles, and working papers. Highlighted are two of his most influential papers, “Business Income Taxation and Investment Incentives” and “Fiscal Policy in the `Thirties: A Reappraisal.” Come see this work alongside archival items documenting his time here at MIT.

For more information on Brown, see the memorial statement on the Economics Department web site.

The 50th anniversary of Sputnik is observed in the October Object of the Month exhibit of the Institute Archives & Special Collections. After the surprise launch of Sputnik by the USSR in 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed MIT’s James R. Killian the first Special Assistant to the President for Science and Technology. Killian chaired the President’s Science Advisory Committee (PSAC), which was instrumental in initiating national curriculum reforms in science and technology and in establishing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Sputnik 1 mockup – NASA image

No formal entrance examination was required in MIT’s first few years, but by 1869 applicants had to pass a qualifying exam in four subjects: English, algebra, geometry, and arithmetic. For its September Object of the Month the Archives is exhibiting the exam in its display case in the hallway across from 14N-118 and on the Web. Take the test, check your answers, and find out more about MIT’s history on the web site of the Institute Archives and Special Collections.

MIT catalogs going back to 1865, examinations from the nineteenth century and later, and a variety of materials relating to students, professors, courses, and other subjects are available for use in the Archives reading room, Building 14N-118, Monday through Thursday, 10 am to 4 pm.

In the 1980s MIT students and faculty members embarked on an exploration of human-powered flight. The August Object of the Month exhibit of the Institute Archives and Special Collections describes the project that produced the Daedalus, in which Kanellos Kanellopoulos made the record-breaking flight from Crete to Santorin in 1988. The records of Project Daedalus are available for research in the Archives reading room, Building 14N-118.

WHERE: 14N-132 (Digital Instruction Resource Center – DIRC)

WHEN: Friday, July 20, noon – 1pm

While you won’t come out of this session qualified to be a patent attorney, you will be able to successfully find patent references from all over the world and know how to obtain patent text and diagrams.

The session will be a hands-on practicum which will help de-mystify the patent literature and expose attendees to key resources for finding patent literature. Using patent literature is important for understanding competitive technologies and keeping abreast of current product innovations.

Feel free to bring your lunch! Drinks and dessert will be provided.

Sponsored by the MIT Libraries.

Contact the Science Library for more information.

Full schedule of JulyAP 2007 information workshops

WHERE: 14N-132 (Digital Instruction Resource Center – DIRC)

WHEN: Friday, July 13, noon – 1pm

Can you use and re-use your own work for future writing and teaching? Or is it locked tight behind a vault of copyright restrictions?

This session will help you find the keys to fully realize the potential of your own work for yourself and the world. It will provide a very brief summary of copyright law and how it affects your work, and an overview of actions you can take to improve the impact and reach of your research – including why retaining rights to your work matters, and how you can take advantage of such rights to increase citation and readership.

Feel free to bring your lunch! Drinks and dessert will be provided.

Sponsored by the MIT Libraries.

Contact the Science Library for more information.

Full schedule of JulyAP 2007 information workshops

What’s the big deal about open access anyway? If I’m writing an article, what rights should I keep? Where can I find out more?

Check out http://libraries.mit.edu/open-access to find out what’s happening nationally and beyond, and http://libraries.mit.edu/rights to find out how to retain your rights and increase the impact of your research.

Look for these posters showing current Open Access Models at the Engineering and Science Libraries (Barker, Hayden, Lindgren and Aero/Astro).

The MIT Archives’ June Object of the Month is Francis H. Bacon’s “Log of the Dorian,” being, in Bacon’s words, ” the Account of a Voyage in a small Boat in the Year 1878-79 from England to the Mediterranean by way of Belgium and Holland, and up the Rhine to the Danube, down to the Black Sea and through the Aegean to Athens, with Sketches made by Himself.”

Bacon’s handwritten journal, containing his watercolors, sketches, and other illustrations, is available for research in the Institute Archives and Special Collections, Building 14N-118.

The Hayden Library (Humanities and Science Libraries) will be open 24 hours a day, from the last day of classes through the last day of the final exam period: Thursday, May 17 through Friday, May 25.

NOTE: Overnight access to the library is restricted to members of the MIT community.

The May Object of the Month exhibit by the Institute Archives and Special Collections is about the physics of baseball, featuring a 1965 letter from Vannevar Bush to his MIT colleague Harold Edgerton in response to a batch of multiflash baseball pictures Edgerton had sent him. Included in the exhibit is a page from Edgerton’s notebook showing two of the photos of the type sent to Bush.

The papers of Bush and Edgerton are available for research in the Archives.

To celebrate the 146th anniversary of the founding of MIT (April 10, 1861), the Institute Archives and Special Collections showcases The Rogers Building, Boston, 1866-1938 — MIT’s First Building — as its April Object of the Month. The exhibit includes photographs of the inside of the building as well as links to related exhibits about MIT’s years as “Boston Tech.”

Learn more about MIT at the Institute Archives and Special Collections (14N-118) — The Source for MIT History.

For March the Institute Archives and Special Collections has chosen “VooDoo, vol. 1, no. 1 (March, 1919): Student Humor at MIT” for its Object of the Month exhibit. Learn more about VooDoo and its mascot, Phosphorus the cat.

The Object of the Month is also displayed in an exhibit case across from the Archives, Room 14N-118.

When: Friday, February 9, 12-1 pm
Where: MIT GIS Lab, Rotch Library, 7-238

We will explore the earth with Google Earth and World Wind – 2 freely available virtual globes. We will also explore KML (Keyhole Markup Language – the file format for Google Earth) and adding your own data into Google Earth. Registration not required, but seating is limited. For information about other upcoming GIS Lab workshops visit: http://libraries.mit.edu/gis/teach/spring2007.html

January’s Object of the Month exhibit describes the “Harmonic Diagram” designed in 1824 by physicist and inventor Charles Wheatstone. The “diagram” is a mechanical device for explaining music theory. It is one of the items from a wide range of time periods, on diverse subjects, in many formats, in the holdings of MIT’s Institute Archives and Special Collections.

Browse other exhibits for a sample of the scope of the Archives’ collections. All are welcome to visit the Archives for further exploration.

MIT’s founder, William Barton Rogers, was born 202 years ago on December 7. It is appropriate, then, that the Institute Archives and Special Collections, in its December Object of the Month exhibit, announces a grant from the Fred J. Brotherton Charitible Foundation to perform conservation work on one hundred documents from the Rogers papers, one of MIT’s most important historical collections. The grant includes funds to convert the guide to the Rogers papers to EAD (Encoded Archival Description), an encoding standard for electronic archival finding aids, to make information about the collection available on the World Wide Web.

The Institute Archives & Special Collections is pleased to announce the availability online of transcripts of oral histories with Walter A. Rosenblith and William R. Dickson.

Walter Rosenblith (1913-2002), Provost, Professor of Communications Biophysics, then Institute Professor, had a tremendous impact in the scientific realm and in the policies and academic structure of MIT. During much the same period, Bill Dickson (1935-2006) oversaw the dramatic growth of the Institute’s campus. We feel that these two oral histories make an interesting juxtaposition