MIT Libraries logo MIT Libraries

MIT Logo Search

Category Archives: All years

Year 150 – 2010: iPad

Product debut: April 2010 To mark the official 150th anniversary of MIT’s founding in 1861, the Institute held  a massive “Next Century Convocation” on April 10, 2011 at the Boston Convention and Exposition Center. During the festivities, the renewal of MIT’s charter – a reaffirmation of the Institute’s mission – was signed by President Susan […]

Year 149 – 2009: Species, Serpents, Spirits and Skulls: Science at the Margins in the Victorian Age by Sherrie Lynne Lyons

Published: Albany, 2009 Victorians filled auditoriums to hear presentations by the leading scientific lights of their day. Michael Faraday’s lectures on electricity and magnetism, for example, were wildly popular and people jammed every hall in which he appeared. But for all their interest in the sciences, Victorians could have trouble distinguishing between legitimate lines of […]

Year 148 – 2008: The Trillion Dollar Meltdown: Easy Money, High Rollers, and the Great Credit Crash by Charles R. Morris

Published: New York, 2008 Early in 2007, Charles Morris emailed his publisher. “I think we’re heading for the mother of all crashes,” he wrote.  “It will happen in summer of 2008, I think.” At the same time, our nation’s financial leaders, both in Washington and on Wall Street, were telling Congress that the U.S. economy […]

Year 147 – 2007: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz

Published: New York, 2007 Junot Díaz is the Rudge and Nancy Allen Professor of Writing in MIT’s Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies. His first book, a collection of short stories called Drown, met with critical acclaim when it was published in 1996, becoming a national bestseller and winning a PEN/Malamud Award. A decade later, […]

Year 146 – 2006: Orange County Housecleaners by Frank Cancian

Published: Albuquerque, 2006 This photo documentary profiles seven women, largely through their own words, all of them currently or formerly housecleaners in Orange County, CA. There’s Sara Velazquez, an immigrant who crossed the river into Laredo on an inner tube and nearly cried when asked during her first interview about her children back in Mexico. […]

Year 145 – 2005: The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology by Ray Kurzweil

Published: New York, 2005 Inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil (MIT class of 1970) defines the Singularity as “a future period during which the pace of technological change will be so rapid, its impact so deep, that human life will be irreversibly transformed.” This prediction is based on the idea that information technology develops exponentially, and […]

Year 143 – 2003: Visionaire, Issue 41: World

Published: New York, 2003 “The idea of a publication that changes format and continually morphs and redefines itself is intriguing” – Variety Intriguing and continually morphing in every imaginable way, Visionaire is an art and fashion publication issued in numbered, limited editions, three times a year since 1991. For each issue, artists, photographers, and fashion […]

Year 142 – 2002: Portraits by Santiago Calatrava

Published: Zurich, 2002 Santiago Calatrava is among the most celebrated architects working today. His bridges don’t merely span gaps between two points, and his buildings don’t merely enclose space. All of Calatrava’s structures are highly sculptural and dramatic, and they sometimes test the limits of technology. Fear not; he is also a structural engineer. But […]

Year 141 – 2001: Karachi, Sentenced: The Architecture of the City in Typography

Published: Karachi, Pakistan, 2001 Known locally as the “City of Lights,” Karachi is the largest city in Pakistan and one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world. In 2001, to promote awareness of the rich cultural heritage of the city, KaravanKarachi (now KaravanPakistan) was formed as a community and youth outreach program. In support […]