Tag: history

Distinctive Collections opens web archives to the public

By mit-admin on June 3, 2019

The Department of Distinctive Collections is pleased to announce that our web archives collections are now open to the public. These web archives consist of MIT-produced webpages and affiliated webpages selected for preservation to ensure valuable information about the Institute and groups and individuals connected to it is accessible and available to researchers in the long term. You can access these archived webpages through the Archive-It website.

Have you ever been browsing for something on an MIT webpage and run into the “404 page not found” screen? While the little drawing tool that shows up when that happens is fun to play with, mostly you want to get to the information that you were looking for. These newly accessible collections from the MIT Libraries Distinctive Collections can help with that. In addition to getting access to websites that are no longer accessible on the live web, you can use these archived websites to study the history of the organizations and people that created these sites. For instance, if you want to know and study what the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) was working on in the late 2010s, their web archives would be a good place to start, in addition to their other archival records which you can access by request in the Distinctive Collections Reading Room.

Scope of collections

Distinctive Collections began collecting web pages through the Archive-It tool (software and platform offered by Internet Archive) in 2016. Since then, the number of websites or “seeds” that we are capturing has risen to 61 with plans to continue to increase in the future. We have started by collecting websites of and about the Institute as our initial effort in order to build on extensive collections of related materials already preserved by Distinctive Collections. This scope will grow as we start to collect websites programmatically and identify unique and distinctive resources to the Institute and beyond. As our capacity grows, we plan to develop options to start archiving community recommended websites.

Screen shot of archived spxce.mit.edu website

Accessing the web archives

By clicking on the URL listed in Archive-It, you can see the dates the webpages were captured and can click on one of them to see the webpage as it appeared on that date. Some sites that we’ve captured are of groups on campus that have only have started recently such as SPXCE: Social Justice Programming & Cross Cultural Engagement and websites related to ongoing developments with the College of Computing. By capturing websites of groups soon after their creation, a future researcher can see how these areas evolved from conception to an established group at the Institute. You can also see how a student group website like the Student Information Processing Board has changed over the past few years. In addition to these examples, there are many other websites from special projects, departments, alumni groups, and more available at the Archive-It page. If you’re interested in working with any of this data (in the form of WARC files), please contact Distinctive Collections and we can provide it on an individual basis (we are working on making these files more widely available).

A History of the Internet

By on October 27, 2017

In a way the Russians caused the Internet. This talk will describe how that happened (hint: it was not actually the Bomb) and follow the path that has led to the current Internet of (unpatchable) Things (the IoT) and the Surveillance Economy.

Scott Bradner was involved in the design, operation and use of data networks at Harvard University since the early days of the ARPANET. He was involved in the design of the original Harvard data networks, the Longwood Medical Area network (LMAnet) and New England Academic and Research Network (NEARnet). Bradner was founding chair of the technical committees of LMAnet, NEARnet and the Corporation for Research and Enterprise Network (CoREN). Read more

Event details
Location: E25-202
We will provide lunch, please bring your own drink and your questions.

Information Science Brown Bag talks, hosted by the Program on Information Science, consists of regular discussions and brainstorming sessions on all aspects of information science and uses of information science and technology to assess and solve institutional, social and research problems. These are informal talks. Discussions are often inspired by real-world problems being faced by the lead discussant.

November 13, 2017 12 - 1pm

Jordan J. Baruch papers open for research

By mit-admin on March 11, 2015

Photograph of Jordan and Rhoda Baruch in China, 1977

The Institute Archives & Special Collections is excited to announce that the Jordan J. Baruch papers are now open for research. See a guide to the collection.

Jordan Baruch was an alumnus of MIT – earning the SB and the SM in 1948 and the ScD in 1950 – as well as an assistant professor in Electrical Engineering in the 1950s and 1960s. He also taught at Harvard, Dartmouth, and Johns Hopkins. In addition to being an educator, Baruch was an inventor and a businessman, and was integral in the founding of several Boston-area companies including Boston Broadcasters, Inc. (WCVB-TV Channel 5) and Bolt, Beranek and Newman.

In 1977 Baruch was appointed to the US Department of Commerce by President Jimmy Carter, serving as Assistant Secretary for Science and Technology. During this tenure, Baruch initiated the founding of the first school of management in China, and was instrumental in fostering economic cooperation between the US and Israel. After leaving the government, he continued to consult around the world on matters of technological innovation, technology education, and economic cooperation, and was invited to participate in peace talks in the Middle East.

Baruch’s papers include drafts of his unpublished memoir, correspondence, publications, teaching materials, photographs, and materials related to his time in government, his work in China, and his international consulting. Digitization is anticipated for audio recordings of Baruch’s lectures at the management school he helped to establish in China.

To access the Jordan J. Baruch papers, please contact the IASC at mithistory@mit.edu or 617-253-5690. For more information on the collection, please contact Dana Hamlin, Project Archivist, at dgoblask@mit.edu or 617-253-5705.

Institute Archives and Special Collections receives records of the MIT Hillel office

By on December 30, 2014

The Institute Archives and Special Collections is pleased to have recently received and processed a donation from the MIT Hillel office. Highlights of the collection include many informal photographs of students at social and religious events sponsored by the Hillel office; posters publicizing events; newsletters; papers, drawings, and brochures about the award winning sukkah design from the early 1990s; and files from the original Director of the MIT Hillel office, Rabbi Herman Pollack. These records provide evidence of a vibrant Jewish community on campus as well as the evolution of MIT Hillel from its beginnings as the Menorah Society.

A Jewish organization on campus began in 1914 with the Menorah Society which was affiliated with the Intercollegiate Menorah Association (IMA). It provided educational, social, and cultural programs for Jewish students. During the 1920s and 1930s, as part of its social activities, the MIT Menorah Society hosted dances with societies at the all-female schools in Boston such as Simmons College and Radcliffe College. The Society continued on campus until the fall of 1945, at which time it was replaced by the MIT chapter of the B’nai B’rith Hillel Foundation. In 1953 Rabbi Herman Pollack joined the MIT Hillel and became the first full time Director. In the 1990s the national organization that began as B’nai B’rith Hillel became Hillel, The Foundation for Campus Jewish Life. Much of the material in the MIT Hillel records is from the 1950s to the early 2000s.

To access the Hillel records, or for more information, contact the Institute Archives and Special Collections at mithistory@mit.edu.

Guardians of the MIT Community

By on April 16, 2014

Barbara Haven, Raymond Roberts, and Robert Molino

Security on MIT’s campus has evolved since the 1950s when night watchmen, serving primarily as fire watch, patrolled the campus. The responsibilities, duties, and reporting structure of the police have changed with the times and the needs of the community. Crimes on campus previously handled by Cambridge police were taken on by MIT’s force in 1959. Over the last two decades the MIT Police have worked with students and staff more collaboratively on safety issues. Read more about the history of the MIT Police on the Institute Archives and Special Collections web site.