Service update
- MIT Covid Pass holders and non-MIT users are now able to request an appointment to visit our reading room.
- Appointments are available Monday through Thursday, from 10 am to 4 pm, and must be requested three business days in advance.
- We offer virtual reference consultations with materials from our collections and provide digitization services. See requesting materials for more information.
- Requests from the MIT community will continue to be prioritized. Thank you for your patience and understanding.
Distinctive Collections collects, preserves, and fosters the use of unique and rare materials such as tangible and digital archives, manuscripts, ephemera, artists’ books, and more. With these collections the Libraries seeks to cultivate an interest in the past, present, and future; the humanistic and the scientific; and the physical and the digital in order to inspire and enable research, learning, experimentation, and play for a diverse community of users.
Explore our collections
James Monaco, There’s a Wireless Station Down in My Heart, c. 1913. Distinctive Collections, MIT Libraries