Published: Boston, 1995 Spring moves over the temperate lands of our Northern Hemisphere in a tide of new life, of pushing green shoots and unfolding buds … the different sound of the wind which stirs the young leaves where a month ago it rattled the bare branches. These things we associate with the land, and it is easy to suppose that at sea there could be no such feeling of advancing spring. But the signs are there, and seen with the understanding eye, they bring the same magical sense of awakening. In The Sea Around Us, Rachel Carson drew on […]

Published: Washington, D.C., 1994 Since its inception in 1944, the World Bank has been providing financial support to reduce poverty in developing countries throughout the world. The concept of “participatory development” dates to the 1970s and arose from research largely funded by the World Bank. As this kit’s foreword explains, the idea is founded upon the basic premise that “the effectiveness of efforts to alleviate poverty will be significantly enhanced by the active engagement of the people and communities affected at all stages in the process.” To that end, this tool kit contains twenty-five activities designed to engage local communities […]

Published: Port Townsend, Wash., 1993 When The Second Four Books of Poems was published in 1993, W.S. Merwin visited MIT to read from his works at the Bartos Theater. The four books in the volume had originally been published during a ten-year span between 1963 and 1973: The Moving Target, The Lice, the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Carrier of Ladders, and Writings to an Unfinished Accompaniment. In these poems the reader can trace a transformation in Merwin’s writing. In his preface to this 1993 volume, he explains why he “relinquished punctuation,” and his reason has been frequently quoted since: “I had […]

Published: New York, 1992 The journal Nature first appeared in print in 1869 and ranks among the most prestigious scientific publications in the world. In the 1970s, as the sciences splintered into more and more refined areas of specialization and as fresh areas of research emerged, Nature began producing offshoot publications, of which Nature Genetics is one. Nature now comprises a large family of tightly focused journals including Nature Geoscience, Nature Climate Change, Nature Medicine, Nature Materials, and many others, reflecting the range and depth of 21st century scientific inquiry. In 1990 the Human Genome Project was officially launched. By […]

Published: Cambridge, Mass., 1991 It’s not much to look at, but Guidelines for the Use of Video Display Terminals at MIT serves as a sort of time capsule. It also provides a specific example of the concern that arises whenever new technology is introduced into the workplace. Today computers and computer monitors are a central part of the daily life of the entire MIT community, but in 1991 such equipment was still quite new. This publication was prepared in response to “a proposal submitted by the Working Group on Support Staff Issues.” It was created by the Ad Hoc Video […]

Published: New York, 1990 You don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to understand why students might need a break from the rigors of an MIT education. For many decades, the Libraries’ collection of detective fiction has served to provide that escape. Before the Internet, before there was a television in every dorm room, students here at “Tech” would curl up with some lighthearted prose for the occasional respite. The seventh installment in Sue Grafton’s “alphabet series” is a contribution to this long Institute tradition. It’s no secret that today’s student is more likely to turn to the Web rather than […]

Published: New York, 1989 When people think about women’s liberation today, the images that come to mind are often of young women in the 1970s burning their bras. Those willing to probe a bit more deeply into the past might remember consciousness-raising groups, or demonstrations held by women fighting for recognition and for equal rights. The publications most often associated with the women’s movement are Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, Kate Millett’s Sexual Politics, the Boston Women’s Health Collective’s Our Bodies, Ourselves and possibly Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex. But the latter is a product neither of the Seventies […]