MIT Libraries News

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

You will use a GPS (global positioning system) and your puzzle solving skills to work your way through the 12 clues and discover a hidden box of treasure. Each clue will help you discover places of information at MIT, while leading you virtually closer to MIT and surely closer to the treasure box. GPS units can be borrowed by the MIT community from Rotch Library (7-238). http://libraries.mit.edu/gis/geocache.html

The subject of the September Object of the Month exhibit by the Institute Archives and Special Collections is the Physical Science Study Committee, a group of university physics professors and high school physics teachers, led by MIT’s Jerrold Zacharias and Francis Friedman, who created new curricula for the teaching of introductory courses in physics.

Further information about the Physical Science Study Committee can be found in the Physical Science Study Committee Oral History Collection (MC 602), the Jerrold Zacharias Papers (MC 31), the Educational Services Incorporated Records (MC 79), the Physical Science Study Committee Records (MC 626), and other sources in the Institute Archives and Special Collections, 14N-118.

The Institute Archives and Special Collections August Object of the Month is President Theodore Roosevelt’s letter appointing John Ripley Freeman (MIT 1876) one of six “engineers of high standing” to inspect and report on construction of the Panama Canal.

The Archives houses a rich collection of Freeman’s papers, including many photographs of the Panama Canal project. Among his many undertakings was a detailed presentation of designs for MIT’s Cambridge campus, “Study No. 7.”

Also in the Archives’ collections are the papers of Allen Hazen, another of the engineers appointed by President Roosevelt. Hazen, who attended MIT in 1888, was the subject of an earlier exhibit.

Pictured here: the six engineers. Freeman and Hazen, 1st row, 1st & 2nd from left

The Institute Archives and Special Collections has launched An MIT Chronology, a timeline detailing some of the major developments of the Institute’s first 145 years. A work in progress, the Chronology is ultimately intended to provide an extensive outline of the history of the Institute from its birth to the present, with authenticity provided by The Source for each entry–a citation to the relevant archival collection.

A live webcast of Commencement on Friday, June 9, will be broadcast beginning at 8:20 a.m. Tom Rosko, Head of the Institute Archives & Special Collections, will share the microphone with Dean of Admissions Marilee Jones to bring the festivities to life on your computer screen and add some historical context.

In observance of the anniversary of the granting of MIT’s charter on April 10, 1861, the Institute Archives and Special Collections has chosen to focus this month’s Object of the Month exhibit on MIT’s Centennial celebration. Some of the many letters and telegrams received by the Institute on the occasion of its 100th birthday are displayed on a poster opposite 14N-118 and on the Archives’ web site. The warmth and enthusiasm of the greetings celebrate the success of William Barton Rogers’s plan for a new kind of institution and illustrate MIT’s influence on the international scientific and educational communities.

In the fall of 1960 MIT mounted an exhibition of forty works by Andrew Wyeth in the Hayden Gallery. March’s Object of the Month exhibit by the Institute Archives and Special Collections displays a letter from Wyeth to MIT’s first lady, Catherine Stratton, setting forth his reasons for declining an invitation to an opening cocktail party. The letter is from the Catherine Nelson Stratton Papers, which include her “Social Book,” records of entertainment at the President’s House while Julius Stratton was president of MIT.

Learn more about the Archives’ collections and MIT’s history by browsing previous exhibits.