Checking Out the Libraries

Alumni got a glimpse into both the past and the future during a tour of MIT's libraries on reunion weekend. Starting at the Institute Archives and Special Collections library-the "memory" of the Institute-alumni viewed the past, chiefly rare books. Among them was Analytical Institutions for the Use of the Youth of Italy, the teaching text of Maria Gaetana Agnesi, who was one of the Western world's first important woman mathematicians. Alumni also viewed plans for a new preservation center that will both care for MIT's rare and unusual print works and digitize those works so they can serve the research needs of scholars around the world.

Then they got to look into the future with DSpace, a joint project between MIT Libraries and Hewlett-Packard to create a repository for digital materials and research produced at MIT. These materials are as much at risk of being lost as the fragile books in the Institute's Special Collections. DSpace hopes to prevent that loss by creating a permanent storage space for digital work that otherwise might become inaccessible under changing standards. A handful of early adopters, including the Sloan School of Management, are helping MIT determine how contributors will use the space. DSpace is the first project of its kind, and the Institute plans to make its resources available to other top research institutions.