Burndy Library/Dibner Institute Of MIT May Move To Pittsburgh
Bill Schackner, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pennsylvania), 1/9/05
Pittsburgh is a leading candidate to land a library and institute now located at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that would bring to this city one of the nation's pre-eminent collections on the history of science and technology.
The 50,000 rare books, 30,000 secondary titles and assorted other materials include one of the world's three greatest assemblages of works by and about Sir Isaac Newton. They are contained in the Burndy Library, which is weighing a move to another city now that an agreement that has kept it on MIT's Cambridge, Mass., campus since 1992 will end in August 2007.
The Burndy and an affiliated research institute need two years to plan their relocation.
Pittsburgh has emerged as a possible new home, partly because of academic and library programs available at the University of Pittsburgh and neighboring Carnegie Mellon University. Other sites being considered are Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind., and a consortium of universities in Philadelphia.
Affiliated with the Burndy is the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology, an international center for advanced scientific research. It sponsors graduate fellowships and hosts symposiums and other gatherings open to scholars worldwide.
The two Pittsburgh campuses, led by Pitt, are preparing a joint proposal, spurred not only by the collection but also by the Dibner Institute's potential as a magnet for scholars working in fields for which Pittsburgh has become known.
"We are already the No. 1 place in the world for the philosophy of science," said Pitt Provost James Maher."We are one of the very leading places in the world on the history of science and technology.
"This would bring history of technology in Pittsburgh up to a prominence that we already occupy in philosophy of science. That would be quite a prestigious thing for both universities," he said.
Maher said discussions were very preliminary, adding,"I can't say a lot."
Campuses competing to host the library and institute will be evaluated on various factors such as quality and vibrancy of programs, commitment to supporting and finding adequate space for the institutions, and the manner in which they will be integrated into campus offerings
The Burndy Library was established in 1941 to accommodate holdings of the late Bern Dibner, a wealthy Ukrainian-born engineer, author and philanthropist whose fascination with Leonardo da Vinci spurred him to become an avid collector. The various items Dibner amassed, including manuscripts and artifacts like early microscopes, are rivaled by only a couple of other collections in the United States, said Ronald Brashear head of special collections at the Smithsonian Libraries, part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
To mark America's bicentennial, Dibner donated a quarter of the Burndy's holdings in 1974 to the Smithsonian, which maintains a library in his name, Brashear said. The rest of the Burndy, then located in Norwalk, Conn., later moved to MIT.
"There aren't that many collections, not that size and scale that cover the wide breadth and also have a research component," said Brashear, who also is curator of the Smithsonian's Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology.
Pittsburgh is a leading candidate to land a library and institute now located at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that would bring to this city one of the nation's pre-eminent collections on the history of science and technology.
The 50,000 rare books, 30,000 secondary titles and assorted other materials include one of the world's three greatest assemblages of works by and about Sir Isaac Newton. They are contained in the Burndy Library, which is weighing a move to another city now that an agreement that has kept it on MIT's Cambridge, Mass., campus since 1992 will end in August 2007.
The Burndy and an affiliated research institute need two years to plan their relocation.
Pittsburgh has emerged as a possible new home, partly because of academic and library programs available at the University of Pittsburgh and neighboring Carnegie Mellon University. Other sites being considered are Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind., and a consortium of universities in Philadelphia.
Affiliated with the Burndy is the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology, an international center for advanced scientific research. It sponsors graduate fellowships and hosts symposiums and other gatherings open to scholars worldwide.
The two Pittsburgh campuses, led by Pitt, are preparing a joint proposal, spurred not only by the collection but also by the Dibner Institute's potential as a magnet for scholars working in fields for which Pittsburgh has become known.
"We are already the No. 1 place in the world for the philosophy of science," said Pitt Provost James Maher."We are one of the very leading places in the world on the history of science and technology.
"This would bring history of technology in Pittsburgh up to a prominence that we already occupy in philosophy of science. That would be quite a prestigious thing for both universities," he said.
Maher said discussions were very preliminary, adding,"I can't say a lot."
Campuses competing to host the library and institute will be evaluated on various factors such as quality and vibrancy of programs, commitment to supporting and finding adequate space for the institutions, and the manner in which they will be integrated into campus offerings
The Burndy Library was established in 1941 to accommodate holdings of the late Bern Dibner, a wealthy Ukrainian-born engineer, author and philanthropist whose fascination with Leonardo da Vinci spurred him to become an avid collector. The various items Dibner amassed, including manuscripts and artifacts like early microscopes, are rivaled by only a couple of other collections in the United States, said Ronald Brashear head of special collections at the Smithsonian Libraries, part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
To mark America's bicentennial, Dibner donated a quarter of the Burndy's holdings in 1974 to the Smithsonian, which maintains a library in his name, Brashear said. The rest of the Burndy, then located in Norwalk, Conn., later moved to MIT.
"There aren't that many collections, not that size and scale that cover the wide breadth and also have a research component," said Brashear, who also is curator of the Smithsonian's Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology.
[Editor's Note: The original piece is much longer; please see the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for more.]