MIT Libraries News

Solar panels on top of the Hayden Memorial Library soak up the afternoon sun. Photo by Donna Coveney

On Wednesday May 26th an event was held in the courtyard of Hayden Library to announce the launch of a three year collaboration between MIT and NSTAR Electric aimed at reducing electric energy consumption on campus by 34 million KWHs, which amounts to 15% of the Institute’s annual total electric use.  Remarks were given by Joseph Nolan, NSTAR Senior Vice President of Customer & Corporate Relations; Terry Stone, MIT Executive Vice President and Treasurer; Vladimir Bulovic, Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; and Jason Jay, doctoral candidate, Sloan School of Management.

Hayden Library was chosen as an ideal location to showcase MIT’s energy efficiency efforts—in 2004 one of the largest solar photovoltaic power installations on campus was mounted on the library’s roof, now additional energy conservation measures are planned for the interior of the library.  Measures include energy efficient lighting retrofits in a number of locations and daylighting controls in the 2nd floor reading room.  Advanced air handling controls will also be installed to accurately measure CO2 and humidity and control outside air intake to optimize energy and comfort, and adjustable speed drives on fan motors will be added to reduce airflow during hours when the library is closed. In a parallel project this summer, the first floor reading room sprinkler, electrical and lighting will be upgraded.

Following the event, small groups were led on tours to Hayden’s 2nd floor reading room and the penthouse mechanical room to view the proposed energy conservation measures.

For more information see MIT News: MIT, NSTAR team up on energy-efficiency program

A bookplate featuring the portrait of Theodore N. Vail, who donated the collection to MIT in 1912.

Records for the Vail Collection – one of the world’s foremost rare book collections on electricity, electrical engineering, magnetism, and lighter-than-air travel – are beginning to appear in Barton, the Libraries’ online catalog.  This historic collection comprises some 25,000 volumes and includes materials dating as far back as the mid-16th century, but it’s been hidden for decades because electronic catalog records hadn’t been created.

A generous gift from Thomas F. Peterson, Jr. (Class of 1957) has made it possible to fully catalog the Vail Collection, and perform essential conservation work.

As these materials are cataloged they can be explored via the Vail RSS page which has a listing of Vail titles (with links to Barton catalog records), or by subscribing to the Vail Collection RSS feed.  Due to the delicate nature of these materials they cannot be checked out, but are available for room use in the Institute Archives.

The Hayden Reading Room is undergoing renovation work this summer. Construction is scheduled to begin after closing on Friday, May 21, at 7pm.

The construction work will be rolled out in two phases. Phase I begins Monday, May 24 and continues until Thursday, July 1. Phase II will begin shortly thereafter and continue through August.

During the project portions of the collections on the first floor will not be browsable. Use Barton’s Request button to have them retrieved for you. We will also retrieve materials on-demand if you’re already in the library.

If you have further questions regarding access to materials, do so online or see the Hayden desk staff.

Need a break from your studies?

Enjoy free drinks & snacks at our two Food for Thought events this week:

Hayden Library (14S-100) lobby, Monday, May 17, 2:30 – 4pm

Barker Library (10-500) lobby, Tuesday, May 18, 2 – 3:30pm

Hayden Library — home to the Humanities & Science Libraries — is open till 2am daily during Finals

from Thursday, May 13 to Friday, May 21:

weekdays, 8am-2pm and Saturday & Sunday, May 15 & 16, 10am-2pm.

Extended hours are for the MIT community only.

Hayden will close Friday, May 21 at 7pm.  Summer hours begin May 22.

Two new exhibitions of photography are on display in Rotch Library through July 1!

SLAB: sidewalk laboratory
social construction
space
street vendors
Saigon

Photography by:
Associate Professor Annette M. Kim
with: Holly Bellocchio Durso ’10,
Tiffany Chu ’10, Minh Huynh-Le ’10, and
Courtney Sung ’10

AND

Light, Details, Poetics: Revealing Stories of Place

Photography by: Kathryn Patricia Dineen, Salomé Francpourmoi, Marium Gul, Marika Kobel, Ethan Lacy, Aditi Mehta, James Moore, Sarah Nusser, Kristal Peters, Sara Elizabeth Rothrock, Mishayla Greist Schmidt, Buck Sleeper, Julie Stein, James Willeford, Sara Zewde

For more information about each exhibit, visit the Rotch Library website.

The American Chemical Society has released an app for iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad users.  ACS Mobile provides readers with a live stream of peer-reviewed research content published in ACS journals and “Latest News” from Chemical and Engineering News (C&EN).

MIT users can access content from an on campus network connection.  Articles may only be read from on campus, but you can read and save abstracts from anywhere.

ACS Mobile allows you to:

• Filter journals to see your favorite ACS publications quickly.
• Save favorite abstracts in a folder for offline reading.
• Search for articles published by ACS and read them on your iPhone.
• Share links and via e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter.

Video demo and more info

Buy for $2.99 in the Apple App Store.

For comments or more information, contact Erja Kajosalo, Chemistry Librarian.

Want to check out an iPad for a few hours? The Lewis Music Library has purchased an iPad for circulation to MIT faculty, students and staff. It contains over 85 music apps along with an iTunes library holding over 3,000 audio clips from the library’s recently-received CDs. It will circulate for 4 hours (no renewals or overnight loans). First come, first served.

The iPad was purchased with money from the Class of 1982 Music Library Fund.

The Lewis Music Library is located in Bldg. 14E-109 and library hours are posted on the web.

Speaker: Kristel Smentek, Assistant Professor of Art History

Date & Time: Wednesday, May 12, Noon-1pm

Location: Maihaugen Gallery (14N-130)

Kristel Smentek, Assistant Professor of Art History and co-curator of the exhibition Technology and Enlightenment, leads an informal tour and discussion of how work is pictured in Diderot’s Encyclopédie.

This event is part of a series of events associated with Technology and Enlightenment, an exhibition in the Libraries’ Maihaugen Gallery (14N-130) that explores one of the most important and controversial publications of the eighteenth century, Diderot’s Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers.

All spring exhibit events

Photo by Christopher Harting

The MIT Libraries’ Summer Hours will begin on Saturday, May 22, 2010.

Barker, Dewey, and Hayden (Humanities & Science) Libraries:
Monday-Friday 10am – 6pm,
Saturday closed, Sunday 1 – 6pm

Rotch Library:
Same hours as above except Sunday closed

Lewis Music Library:
Monday-Friday 11am – 5pm,
Saturday-Sunday closed

For a complete list of locations and hours see the Libraries’ website.

Please note all libraries will be closed Memorial Day weekend (May 29-31) and for a week during the Independence Day holiday (July 2-9).

“Deep in the heart of the MIT campus lies a hidden treasure…the Rosalind Denny Lewis Music Library.” Follow along as the narrator takes you on a video tour of “an oasis filled with books, scores, recordings, quiet study spaces” and much more.

The brief tour highlights the collections, facilities, and services of the Lewis Music Library. Filmed by Gregory Perkins ’10.