MIT Libraries News

Piano obtained through the Class of 1982 Music Library Fund

It’s happening again: Library music! Open mic in the Lewis Music Library, a chance to try out the new piano. Come jam, perform, or just listen. Everyone welcome. Bring your own music or use the library’s (we’ve got lots!).

Date: Friday, April 4, 2014
Place: Lewis Music Library, Bldg. 14E-109
Time: noon- 1 pm
Refreshments provided

Save the date! One more first Friday open mic event this semester: May 2, 2014

Composer forum series: Keeril Makan

Letting Time Circle Through Us and other recent music
A preview for the concert of Keeril Makan’s music by Either/Or on April 5 in Killian Hall.

Date: Thursday, April 3, 2014
Place: Lewis Music Library, Bldg. 14E-109
Time: 5-6 pm
Reception follows
Free and open to the public

Sponsored by MIT Music and Theater Arts.

Discussion: Thursday, February 27, 2014, 11:00 am, 14N-132 (DIRC)

Detail: Two modes of Reflectance Transformation Imaging. The bottom view shows a Japanese woodcut in “Normal” mode. The top view shows the “Specular Enhancement” mode, which removes color virtually to reveal the subtle surface impressions made in the paper by the artist. © Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Konishi Hirosada, artist, Osaka Actor Mimasu Daigoro IV , color woodcut with embossing and metallic pigment, c. 1851-59.

New scientific imaging tools offer the capability to see distinctive details on a 16th century rare book cover, a manuscript, or a work of art, that can’t be seen with the naked eye. Please join the MIT Libraries’ Curation and Preservation Services Department for a fascinating look at how this technology can help us to learn more about our cultural heritage materials, and how to best preserve them.

Carla Schroer, of the non-profit Cultural Heritage Imaging, will discuss the new empirical capture and analysis tools Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI), Algorithmic Rendering (AR), and image-based Structure from Motion (SFM) generation of textured 3D geometry. These techniques will be explored in the context of the emerging science of “Computational Photography.” Computational Photography extracts and synthesizes information from image sequences to create a new type of image containing information not found in any single image in the sequence. This technology is in use in many areas from major art museums to remote archaeological sites to fields in the natural sciences.

The event is free and open to the public, no registration required.

Welcome back! While you were on winter break, the Libraries were working on some improvements we think you’ll like (possibly even love).

• Extended borrowing periods Yes, you can keep books out longer! You asked, and we doubled the amount of time you can borrow library materials. 60 days for most MIT items, with up to 5 renewals.

• Ask Us! Chat–live help service Get your library questions answered in real time on your computer or tablet with our new online chat service.

• Statistical software help Get help with R, Stata, SAS, and more. Use our new guide, or schedule a free in-person consultation with an expert from the Harvard-MIT Data Center.

If you like these services, let us know! Connect with us on Twitter or Facebook.

Join the MIT Libraries for a series of classes on topics that range from letterlocking to the music of the Arab Spring. Some classes require registration.

Creative Bookbinding 2014
Tue Jan 7, 10:00am-12:30pm, 14-0513
Wed Jan 8, 10:00am-12:30pm, 14-0513
Contact: Kate Beattie, knb@mit.edu

Rare Book Speed Dating
Fri Jan 10, 10:30am-11:00am, 14N-118
Fri Jan 10, 11:15am-11:45am, 14N-118
Contact: Audrey Pearson, pearsona@mit.edu

Library Music! Open Mic in the Lewis Music Library
Fri Jan 10, 12:00pm-1:00pm, 14E-109
Fri Jan 24, 12:00pm-1:00pm, 14E-109
Contact: Peter Munstedt, pmunsted@mit.edu

Using Images in Your Work: A Look at Fair Use, Open Licensing, Copyright, and Identifying and Citing Images
Fri Jan 10, 1:00pm-2:15pm, 14N-132
Contact: Ellen Duranceau, efinnie@mit.edu

A Conversation with Ta’Nehisi Coates about Reading, Writing, and Libraries
Mon Jan 13, 11:00am-12pm, 14E-304
Contact: Patsy Baudoin, patsy@mit.edu

Leave It to the Beavers: A Snapshot of Life at MIT in the 1950s
Fri Jan 24, 2:00pm-3:30pm, 14N-118
Contact: Camille Torres Hoven, cttorres@mit.edu

Historic Letterlocking: The Art and Security of Letterwriting
Tue Jan 28, 10:00am-3:00pm, 14-0513
Wed, Jan 29, 10:00am-3:00pm, 14-0513
Contact: Jana Dambrogio, jld@mit.edu

Rap, Rai, Rock, and Revolution: The Role of Music in the “Arab Spring”
Tue Jan 28, 3:00pm-5:00pm, 3-133
Contact: Michael Toler, mtoler@mit.edu

For a complete list of IAP classes offered by the Libraries, please see our Calendar of Events.

Do you use statistical software packages, such as R, Stata, SAS, or SPSS?  Want to be more effective with statistical analysis, research technology, or social science research methods? No need to struggle with these issues on your own!

MIT has two new resources that can help:

1. Guide to Statistical Software

• Learn how to access statistical software (e.g., R, Stata, SAS) at MIT
• Find resources for learning and using these software packages

2. Research Technology Consulting

This service is available to help you individually with:

• Learning or troubleshooting statistical software packages such as R, Stata, or SAS
• Data analysis support and programming advice
• Statistical methodology questions
• For social science research projects:
  • Research project planning and guidance
  • Use of research technology (e.g., screen scraping, social network analysis, and more)

To make an appointment or ask for tips on a project:

• email support@help.hmdc.harvard.edu with your MIT affiliation and a detailed description of your question; or
• drop by their weekly office hours Fridays 1-4pm at Harvard.

This service, based at Harvard, is provided by the Harvard-MIT Data Center and available to the MIT community as a pilot.

Learn Statistical Software in Workshops
In addition, attend one of the upcoming workshops on statistical software.

The Harvard-MIT Data Center also provides: a data repository, research computing environment, and a specialized computer lab.

For questions about these services, contact Jennie Murack, Statistics Specialist, or Katherine McNeill, Social Science Data Services Librarian.

Pauline Maier

Historian Pauline Maier, who wrote award-winning books on 18^th-century America, died last month at age 75. Maier had been on the MIT faculty since 1978. In one of her best-known books, American Scripture, she helped show that the Declaration of Independence was a “secular document” and a collaborative effort, not a sacred text that Thomas Jefferson wrote on his own: In her research Maier found dozens of local resolutions to declare independence from the British Crown. The New York Times named American Scripture one of the 11 best books of 1997.

“One of the key intellectual figures in her field, Pauline was also a leader at MIT—a great historian and scholar who understood the pulse of the Institute and helped guide and improve our community in profound ways,” said Deborah Fitzgerald, dean of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at MIT.

“The impact of losing Pauline goes beyond family, friends, and colleagues. It extends to the young students who now will never encounter her enthusiasm, the cut of her mind, and how she made America’s past come alive,” wrote Maier’s MIT colleague John Dower in a post alongside other remembrances and tributes.

Maier was on the original faculty committee that put forward the MIT faculty Open Access Policy.

Explore Professor Maier’s research in the Open Access Articles collection in DSpace@MIT, where it is openly accessible to the world.

Since the MIT faculty established their Open Access Policy in March 2009 they have made thousands of research papers freely available to the world via DSpace@MIT. To highlight that research, we’re offering a series of blog posts that link news stories about scholars’ work to their open access papers in DSpace.

Welcome back! The MIT Libraries have been working hard during your summer vacation.  Here are some of the new things you can look forward to this fall:

New Resources

• New search tool  Finding library resources just got easier with BartonPlus. It brings together many library collections in one search interface–searching most MIT-licensed e-resources like e-books and full-text articles, as well as collections in the classic Barton catalog like books, theses, music, DVDs, and more. 

• More options for borrowing  Borrow Direct, a partnership that allows library materials to be shared between member institutions, has expanded to include the University of Chicago. MIT users can search over 50 million volumes owned by Borrow Direct libraries through MIT’s WorldCat.

• New guide to APIs for scholarly resources  Many scholarly publishers, databases, and products offer APIs to allow users with programming skills to more powerfully extract data to serve a variety of research purposes. With an API, users might create programmatic searches of a citation database, extract statistical data, or dynamically query and post blog content. Learn more in the APIs for Scholarly Resources guide.

• Music Oral History Project  For over 100 years music has been a vibrant part of MIT’s culture. A new website features in-depth interviews with faculty, staff, and former students about their musical experiences at the Institute, as well as their professional careers in music or other fields.

• New e-resources  Find a number of new online resources including: the National Geographic Archive, Smithsonian Global Sound, several new titles in the Gale Virtual Reference Library, the Encyclopedia of Environmetrics, and Encyclopedia of Hydrological Sciences in the Wiley Online Library, and more.

Improved study spaces

• Upgrades to Hayden Library  The window bays in Hayden have gotten a facelift! The windows have been cleaned, frames painted, and new shades have replaced the curtains. Also check out the  new artwork by Dennis Oppenheim that adorns the first floor wall. Additionally, a number of tables and study carrels in Hayden were refinished this summer. Coming up – we hope to reupholster some of the comfy seating on the 1st floor.

• Finding locations, hours, and study spaces  New and improved webpages make it easier to locate current and future library hours with a date-picker option. Also find and reserve study spaces online and learn about what each location has to offer.
  

Upcoming events

• Music & Theater Arts Composer Forums  During the fall term the Lewis Music Library will host MTA Composer Forums. Stop by the library at 5pm on Oct. 9, Oct. 23, Nov. 6, Nov. 20 to hear from featured musicians.

•  Fall workshops Throughout the month of October the Libraries will offer a series of workshops on subject-specific resources. See the event calendar for details.
  

Be sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook for all the latest news!

A new library resource, the Music at MIT Oral History Collection, brings the history of music at MIT to life through in-depth video and audio interviews with MIT music faculty, staff, and former students. It shares the stories of performers, conductors, composers, music theorists, historians, acousticians, librarians, scientists and engineers, revealing their contributions to the musical life of the Institute and the world at large, as well as the effect music at MIT had in their own lives and careers.

• Choose interviews by MIT affiliation (MIT faculty, staff, student, etc.) and by topic (composers, jazz, world music, etc.).
• Select interviews to watch video, or listen to audio.
• Search within transcripts by keyword, download PDF transcripts, and view biographical background information on each interviewee.

The resource is a culmination of over a decade’s worth of documentation by Forrest Larson, a staff member at MIT’s Lewis Music Library. The project was generously funded by MIT alumnus Lionel Kinney (’53). Learn more about the project.

In 2012 CMS/WHS Professor Nick Montfort published The Trivial Program ‘yes’, the first of a series of technical papers, the “Trope Report Technical Report Series.” Read the first five tech reports in DSpace. Note, too, that “trope report” is a palindrome, one of Professor Montfort’s favorite literary genres.

The “Trope Tank” is the name of his lab for creative computing at 14N-233, and there’s more about it at http://trope-tank.mit.edu.

The Libraries is pleased to announce new offerings in streaming media that support our MIT communities.

Art and Architecture in Video
http://libraries.mit.edu/get/artv
This streaming video database offers more than 400 documentaries and interviews illustrating the history, theory, and practice of art, design, and architecture. This database includes real-time transcript highlighting, the ability to make clips, and offers links for embedding in course management systems.

OnArchitecture
http://libraries.mit.edu/get/onarch
This streaming video package contains more than 150 interviews with architects, project walk-throughs, and other original video about architectural design. Watch an interview with Ai Weiwei: http://www.onarchitecture.com/interviews/ai-weiwei-0. This resource offers closed captioning.

OntheBoards.tv
http://libraries.mit.edu/get/ontheboards
Sponsored by On the Boards in Seattle, the videos in this collection cover contemporary theatre, dance, and performance art. All are recordings of performances at either On the Boards or other arts organizations around the country.

Smithsonian Global Sound
http://libraries.mit.edu/get/globalsound
This streaming audio collection of world music provides access to over 42,000 tracks from the Smithsonian Archives and world music archives in Asia and Africa. Coverage includes over 169 countries worldwide, 1,000 genres, 1,400 cultural groups, and 450 different languages.

For more information or to learn more about how these resources may enhance research or teaching, please contact an MIT Libraries subject specialist.

Monday, April 8^th is this year’s Day of DH.

A Day in the Life of the Digital Humanities is a project that examines the state of the digital humanities through the lens of those within it. Follow the day’s activities @DayofDH on Twitter.

If you’re interested in the digital humanities or if you’re wondering what it is, explore our most recent research guide, Digital Humanities. Since it’s a work in progress, please let us know what you’d like to see added to it. 

Photo by Kurt Fendt

Kurt Fendt, Director of HyperStudio, recently announced the nomination of eight fellows to participate in the first year of HyperStudio’s new fellowship program, including two librarians, Sands Fish and Patsy Baudoin.

HyperStudio brings together humanities postdocs and visiting scholars, librarians, technologists, artists, curators, and other members of the MIT community to generate questions and energy around the Digital Humanities. The HSF program aims to cultivate community and collaboration at the edges of disciplines and fields, finding overlaps and investigating productive tensions of creative and critical engagement.

Read more information

Aga Khan Documentation Center presents a film viewing of

Slingshot Hip Hop

Slingshot Hip Hop braids together the stories of young Palestinians living in Gaza, the West Bank and inside Israel as they discover Hip Hop and employ it as a tool to surmount divisions imposed by occupation and poverty. From internal checkpoints and Separation Walls to gender norms and generational differences, this is the story of young people crossing the borders that separate them.

“Documentary Competition” Sundance Film Festival 2008
Top 3 Finalist for the IDFA- “DOC U” Competition, Amsterdam
“Audience Award: Best Documentary“ Films de Femmes, France
“Audience Award: Best Film“ DOX BOX Film Festival, Syria
“Best Director” Beirut International Film festival, Lebanon
“Audience Award: Best Film“ Beirut International Film festival, Lebanon
“Jury Prize” Festival Cinéma et Politique de Tours, Paris, France
“Audience Award: Best Film“ Arabian Sights/Washington DC International Film Festival
“Silver Hanoman Prize” JAFF film festival, Indonesia
“Best Mediterranean Film” Granada Festival Cine del Sur, Spain
“Audience Award: Best Documentary” Cairo Refugee Film Festival, Egypt
“Audience Award: Best Film” Cairo Refugee Film Festival, Egypt
“Most Anticipated Film” Cairo Refugee Film Festival, Egypt
“Audience Award: Best Film“ Toronto Palestine Film Festival, Canada
“The Festival des Libertés Award” Festival des Libertés festival in Brussels, Belgium
“Aloha Accolade Winner” Honolulu Film Festival, Hawaii

Brown bag lunch event – dessert provided

Tuesday, 9 April 2013, 12:30 (film length 83 minutes)

7-134A (Rotch Library Conference Room)

Please join us!

This special presentation is made possible by the Aga Khan Program Documentation Center @ MIT Libraries

Questions? Contact: scsmith@mit.edu, 617.354.5022

Long trips are a great time to take advantage of the MIT Libraries’ audiobook collection. The collection, housed in the Browsery on the second floor of Hayden, has titles ranging from general fiction

• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz
• Life of Pi, by Yann Martel
• Ragnarok, by A.S. Byatt

to history of science and technology

• How the Hippies Saved Physics, by David Kaiser
• The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, by Richard P. Feynman
• Theory of Everything, by Stephen Hawking

to popular culture

• Barrel Fever and Other Stories, by David Sedaris
• Bossypants, by Tina Fey
• The King’s Speech, by Mark Logue and Peter Conradi

and more. We focus on getting works that are Audie Award winners and nominees, as well as winners of Earphones Awards. These works have excellent readers, a critical aspect of a good audiobook. Take a listen!

Please suggest any titles you would like to see something in the collection!

Start cultivating a garden of knowledge with MIT Libraries’ research guides. Our guides dig deeper than Google to uncover the best sources for information on your research topic. Each guide contains lists of resources recommended by expert librarians. Suggestions for print and electronic resources, databases, and journals—it’s all there!

• Researching soil chemistry properties in the scholarly literature? What database does the Chemistry guide suggest?

• Not sure what the first settlers in Massachusetts grew in their gardens? Try the Historical Newspapers guide.

• Want to do market research on produce? Have you seen the Do-It-Yourself Market Research guide?

We even have guides about organizing your references, managing your data, getting published, and so much more! Seriously, think of a topic – any topic. Yep, we probably have that, too.

And you’re always welcome to ask us for help!

Doing quantitative research?  Need statistics for a research project, paper, or to provide context for a project?  Looking for a needle-in-a-haystack?  Try these new statistical databases from the Libraries!

Statista provides statistics on a wide range of topics, including industries, markets, demography, countries & economies.  It harvests data from market researchers, trade associations, scientific publications, and government sources, and compiles it in a central place for you to search.  Download data in tabular or graphical form and link to original data sources and related reports.  Find statistics such as:

• Global market share held by the leading smartphone operating systems in sales to end users from 1st quarter 2009 to 4th quarter 2012
• Percentage of U.S. population who has (or ever had) cancer, 1999-2011, by age
• U.S. organic food sales growth forecast from 2010 to 2014
• Monthly unemployment rate in the U.S. from January 2012 to January 2013 (seasonally-adjusted)
• and more…

Access Statista at: http://libraries.mit.edu/get/statista.

Researching local areas in the United States?  Govistics provides spending, revenue, employment and crime data for state and local governments and school districts across the U.S., pulling together data from different sources.  Find data such as the following for the City of Cambridge:

• Government spending and number of employees in all areas, including social services, education, and public safety
• Number of violent and property crimes
• Investment portfolio of the city’s retirement system, with data on membership and contributions
• and more…

Access Govistics at: http://libraries.mit.edu/get/govistics.

Need data on your research topic but have no idea who collects it?  Try the Statistical Abstract of the United States!  This online reference source provides summary statistical tables of everything under the sun, and detailed citations to the original source for you to find more detailed data.  Search not only by subject but also filter your results to those available at certain demographic (e.g., age, sex, race, education, marital status), geographic (e.g., state, smsa), and economic (e.g., industry, occupation) breakdowns.  Find data such as:

• Nonfatal occupational injury and illness cases in private industry by type of injury or illness and days away from work: 2010
• Coastline counties most frequently hit by hurricanes: 1960 To 2008
• Municipal solid waste generation, materials recovery, combustion with energy recovery, and discards: 1980 to 2010
• Research and development expenditures in science and engineering at universities and colleges: 2000 to 2010

Access the Statistical Abstract at: http://libraries.mit.edu/get/stat-abstract.

Want further information on statistics and data resources?  Try Social Science Data Services or other data resources listed on our subject-oriented research guides.

Thursday, January 10, 2013, 3-4pm in 14N-132 

photo by L.Barry Hetherington

Are you interested in music, video, literature, art or architecture? Join Libraries staff for a session highlighting some of the vast arts, culture, and multimedia resources available to you through the MIT Libraries. Learn how to access over a million tracks of streaming audio (everything from classical to jazz to popular music), over 150,000 online music scores, streaming video of foreign films, dance, theater, documentaries and more, and over one million high-res images of art, architecture, science and the humanities.

Please register for this class.

Questions? Contact Mark Szarko.

If you use Google Scholar, you already know it’s a great tool for finding citations to literature in your research area. It’s a massive index of articles, books and other publications of a scholarly nature. (It doesn’t cover ALL the scholarly literature in any discipline, however, so be sure to include the Libraries’ databases in Vera in your literature search.)

Many of the articles in Google Scholar are licensed by the MIT Libraries through our subscriptions, so – in many cases – the full text is available to you. If you are on campus, you’ll see this link in your results list:

Are you working off campus?   To take advantage of this feature, click on Settings and then Library Links.

Type MIT in the search window; select it; click Save.  You should now see the full text link in your results list for articles in any of MIT’s paid subscriptions.

Hundreds of films from all over the world!

New World Cinema includes full-length feature films as well as award-winning short films. Many are award-winning (collectively the films have won more than 1,000 awards). Films are indeed from all over the world and many different genres.  Happy Together by Wong Kar Wai, Tran Anh Hung’s The Scent of Green Papaya, and Michael Haneke’s The Piano Teacher are among the internationally known.

In a new video, two philosophers, Professor Richard Holton, Chair of the MIT Faculty Open Access Working Group, and Peter Suber, author of the MIT Press book Open Access, discuss the significance of open access to research, and the MIT Faculty Open Access Policy. The video captures a live discussion held at MIT during global open access week in October, sponsored by the MIT Libraries and the MIT Press, and moderated by Director of Libraries Ann Wolpert.

The philosophers reflected on whether their discipline has motivated their support of open access to research and scholarship. Professor Holton indicated that his role as a moral philosopher has highlighted the rare position academics enjoy with respect to their writing:

“we’re not like journalists, we’re not like novelists, or composers, who have to sell their stuff…we are in this incredibly privileged position, where we can give [our articles] away, and that only adds to the benefit to us.“

Peter Suber, Director of the Harvard Open Access Project, and a Faculty Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, said his “primary motivation” in supporting open access is not linked specifically to philosophy, but rather to his desire to seize the opportunity the web holds for scholarly publishing.

Holton explored the possibilities open access offers for this kind of change in the scholarly publishing system, identifying the “strong monopoly position” of some publishers as a key motivator for the MIT Faculty Open Access Policy. The Policy, Holton said, addresses the “mess” the scholarly publishing market is in by offering a “freely available database” of MIT-authored articles that is “indexed through Google Scholar and other search engines.” After making an article available in this database under the Policy, the author can still “go on and publish…with a scholarly journal,” which provides the “very important task as a kind of quality control.” He notes that MIT has made “about a third” of articles openly available since the faculty Policy was put in place.

Both speakers addressed the role of publishers moving forward. In Suber’s view, we need to “persuade publishers [that] adapting to the world of open access publishing is better than resisting,” a task that is becoming easier given the increasing momentum of open access. Holton emphasized that working antagonistically is not necessary, that

“there is a way forward for both us and the publishers.”

Suber and Holton agreed that the recent approach to open access recommended in the UK could be counterproductive. “I love the ambition” of making all of the UK’s research open access, Suber said, but the UK should “tweak the policy” so that it emphasizes depositing manuscripts in repositories, in addition to the current focus on publication in open access journals. Holton had reservations as well. The UK plan is “not a good way to go,” he says, and will lead to “double dipping” by some publishers and to “entrench[ing] the monopolies of these journals.”

Both philosophers continue to devote their time and energy to supporting open access to research, working towards lasting cultural change that will make open access — and thus wider and more equitable access — the norm. They look to the day when, as Suber said, it will be “unheard of to write an article and not deposit it in a repository.”

More information:

Scholarly publishing website
Podcasts & videos on scholarly publishing and copyright

The Hayden Library will host an interactive exhibition starting on September 7th. Patrons will be able to play a selection of video games adapted from literary works from Sophocles to Douglas Adams. The exhibit explores the range of approaches taken to create videogames of literary works. The result is often whimsical, turning the worlds of these stories into spaces to be explored.

The games featured in the exhibit invite players to become Nick Carraway, the narrator of The Great Gatsby, dodging drunken partygoers in the way to meeting Gatsby; explore the world of Shakespeare’s plays; carry out an introspective exercise based on Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus; or revisit the events of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Games by the Book, curated by Clara Fernández-Vara and Nick Montfort, will be open to the public through October 8th on the 2nd floor of the Hayden Library. More details at http://trope-tank.mit.edu/games_by_the_book/.

The exhibit is sponsored by the De Florez Fund for Humor, the MIT Council of the Arts, the MIT Game Lab, and the Electronic Literature Organization and Comparative Media Studies.

When: Thu April 26, 12:30 – 1:30 pm

Where: 14N-132

Want to find out how to obtain over one million tracks of streaming audio ranging from classical to jazz, popular, and contemporary world music? How about over 150,000 online music scores? Streaming video of poets reading from their work? Images so sharp you can see the shadow beneath the Mona Lisa’s smile? Or panoramic views of architectural sites from around the world?

Come to this session to learn how to bring these and other cultural treasures right to your desktop through the MIT Libraries.

Please register for this session. For more information, please contact Mark Szarko.

When: Wed April 11, 11:00 am – 2:00 pm

Where: Lobby 10

Celebrate National Bookmobile Day with the MIT Libraries! Check out new fiction and non-fiction, DVDs, and music (Bring your MIT ID if you want to borrow something).

For more information, please contact Theresa Tobin.

Noam Chomsky, photo credit: MIT News

MIT’s Libraries were recently chosen to be the stewards of the personal archives of noted linguist, political activist, and Institute Professor emeritus Noam Chomsky. The significant collection spans a long and distinguished career, beginning when Chomsky joined MIT in 1955 in the Research Laboratory of Electronics, through his years as a professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics, then as Institute Professor.

Often referred to as “the father of modern linguistics,” Chomsky revolutionized the field of linguistics and paved the way for transformational grammar and universal grammar. His book Syntactic Structures (1957) was considered groundbreaking. He also made significant contributions to the fields of psychology, cognitive science, philosophy of language and philosophy of mind.

“It’s fitting that Professor Chomsky’s papers will remain at MIT as a resource for future generations of scholars. He revolutionized the way we think about the linguistic sciences and the cognitive mechanisms of language acquisition, and his ideas in many realms have had profound influence on scholarship and public discourse here at MIT and worldwide,” MIT President Susan Hockfield said.

Over the years, Chomsky has been awarded numerous prizes, including the Kyoto Prize in 1988 and the MIT Killian Award for the academic year 1991-1992. Most recently, he won the Sydney Peace Prize in 2011. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

“Over the last fifty years, Noam Chomsky has not only created the building blocks of linguistic theory and understanding, but has built a remarkable and unique department of Linguistics that has nurtured several generations of linguists who have taken their MIT experience into and across the globe. It is wonderful that Noam’s papers, which span this long period of growth and development, will be available to scholars for many years to come,” MIT Dean of Humanities Deborah Fitzgerald said.

The collection also reflects Chomsky’s political activism and outspoken support for freedom of speech and social justice. He was once quoted as saying, “If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all” (Guardian (UK), Nov.23, 1992).

He has authored numerous works on the topic, including American Power and the New Mandarins (1969), Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988), Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy (2006), and Hopes and Prospects (2010).

The addition of Chomsky’s personal archives, and a large portion of his personal library, augments a small existing collection of Chomsky’s papers already in the care of the MIT Libraries’ Institute Archives.

“With this addition, the collection will be a complete archival resource that will provide researchers with unique insight into Professor Chomsky’s thinking, and the development of the field of linguistics, as well as his views on significant issues in social activism from post-WWII through current day,” MIT Institute Archivist Tom Rosko said.

Staff from the MIT Libraries and Institute Archives and Special Collections are in the beginning stages of transferring material to the Archives. Initial work in organizing the Chomsky collection will occur this year, with additional work on improving access to the collection, including online access to portions of it, continuing over the next several years. When the work is done, scholars will have unprecedented access to an enormous depth and breadth of material from one of the world’s most renowned linguists and top intellectual minds.

Want to brush up on your language skills or learn a new language? Use all that time you spend waiting for the T, and learn a new language with Byki Mobile!

Learn over 70 languages, including English, using the Byki language-learning system. Learn at your own pace with virtual flashcards and quizzes.  Byki will remember where you left off, so you can track your progress and easily learn on-the-go. The mobile app works for iPhone and Android, but if you don’t have a mobile device, you can still use Byki from any computer.

To get started: 

1. Visit Byki through the MIT Libraries from a computer or mobile device, and log in through your MIT Touchstone account.
2. Click the “Sign Up Now” button and create an account. (Or just log in, if you already have a Byki account.)
3. After you’ve logged in, click the “Byki Mobile” button, and follow the steps to download and activate the Byki Community Edition app for Android or iPhone.

To access the full version of Byki, use the same link from a computer: http://libraries.mit.edu/get/byki.

Questions? Ask Us!

Please join us for the opening of the MIT Libraries’ latest exhibit GLASS AT MIT: BEAUTY AND UTILITY

Date: Friday, February 10, 2-4pm
Location: Maihaugen Gallery (14N-130)

A new exhibition in the Libraries’ Maihaugen Gallery explores glassmaking as revealed in glassware from MIT laboratories, blown glass from the MIT Glass Lab, and stunning stained glass windows from the Libraries’ Charles J. Connick Stained Glass Foundation Collection. Tools, early photographs, and selections from rare books demonstrate the combination of artistry and engineering that goes into the creation of glass.

This event is free and open to the community.

Kai von Fintel, Professor of Linguistics and Associate Dean of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences has announced a personal open access policy. He sets requirements for openness for his journal articles, book chapters, and books.

For journals, he “will only publish in, review for, and serve on editorial boards for journals that allow authors to deposit at least the final manuscript version (“postprint”) in an open access repository (such as MIT’s Dspace or the Semantics Archive), without any embargo (such as having to wait for 24 months before making the OA version available).”

His publishing policy for book chapters is the same as for journals, but he “will consider reviewing books or book chapters that are not OA-friendly, because books are a different business from research journals,” though he “wish[es] that there was more movement towards OA books.”

As for books, Professor von Fintel will limit his publishing to books that “have a significant open access component, such as making at least the final manuscript freely available…”

Professor von Fintel has been taking action for more open access to research and scholarship for many years. In 2007, he launched an open access journal in his field, Semantics & Pragmatics, with a colleague, David Beaver. In 2009, he participated in the faculty committee that crafted the MIT Faculty Open Access Policy. He decided to post his personal open access policy publicly now because, as he tells it, “I had noticed that some of my publication and reviewing decisions were made in a rather unprincipled way that I later regretted. Having a clear personal policy will guide me towards making deliberate decisions in these matters.”

The passage of the MIT Faculty Open Access Policy makes it possible for faculty research to be shared openly on the web, von Fintel says, but a personal manifesto is still important because “faculty still have to make principled decisions such as choosing a journal that does not impose an embargo or exerts pressure to opt out of the OA Policy.”