The MIT Libraries Department of Distinctive Collections collects, preserves, and makes available the Libraries’ unique and rare materials. Our collections range across disciplines, time periods, and formats and include faculty research and personal archives, Institute records, student and community life materials, Institute publications, the Aga Khan Documentation Center, and rare book collections on various topics of science, technology, engineering, architecture, and the humanities – just to name a few.  

Here are new acquisitions brought into the collections from January through March 2023. Some materials are accessible today, while others are being processed and cataloged and will be available soon.

Available now

• Visible Language Workshop records
• Gyorgy Kepes: Arts and the Environment and Vision and Value collection 
• Experimental Music Studio recordings
• Center for Advanced Visual Studies records
• Visual Arts Program records
• Additions to Art, Culture and Technology Program at MIT records 
• February 2023 MIT Theses
• Rare Books:
  • A tale of a tub by Ben Jonson (1640)
  • The English grammar by Ben Jonson (1640) 
  • The sad shepherd: or, A tale of Robin-Hood by Ben Jonson (1641)
  • The magnetic lady; or, Humors reconsil’d by Ben Jonson (1640)

Coming soon

• Wayne O’Neil personal archives (professor of linguistics and former Head of the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy)
• JoAnne Yates personal archives (Sloan Distinguished Professor of Management and former Deputy Dean of Programs at Sloan)
• James Elliot personal archives (professor of planetary astronomy and physics who discovered the rings of Uranus in 1977)
• Wright Brothers Wind Tunnel Technical Reports
• Additions to Physical Science Study Committee records
• Additions to Peter Eagleson personal archives
• MIT Mandolin Club photograph, 1898-1899
• Additions to Gerald Jay Sussman personal archives
• Additions to the Roman Jakobson papers
• Additions to Collection on Student Life
  • 1921 notes on business management by Professor Erwin H. Schell
  • 1946 Field Day certificate
  • Student protest posters related to the MIT Statement on the Freedom of Expression and Academic Freedom
  • 1919 Diary of Ram Prasad

To see any of these collections or items (even the items coming soon), follow the instructions on our website or fill out our contact form with any questions. Please note that some records may be closed for a set time frame due to Institute access restrictions.