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// Workers AI · dad joke modeWhy did the Burndy Library book go to therapy? It had a bad binding experience.

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Burndy Library
Location
TypeResearch library
ScopeHistory of science and technology
Established1941
Dissolved2006

The Burndy Library (1941–2006) was one of the world's largest collections of books on the history of science and technology. It was begun by Bern Dibner in Norwalk, Connecticut, in 1941, then managed and developed further after his death by the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology at MIT beginning in 1992. A quarter of its holdings were transferred to the Smithsonian Institution in 1974, anticipating the United States Bicentennial, forming the nucleus of the Smithsonian's Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology opened in 1976. The Burndy Library was disestablished in 2006 and its collections were transferred to the Huntington Library.

Description

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The Library was one of the world's largest collections of books on the history of science and technology.[1] Its holdings included important scientific literature from antiquity to the 20th century.[2] Highlights of the collection included one of the world's most complete sets of the works of Isaac Newton, including books owned and annotated by Newton as well as some sixty manuscripts by Newton, multiple books about Leonardo da Vinci, all of Charles Darwin's works, important manuscript and print materials by Louis Pasteur, a 1544 edition of Archimedes' mathematical text Philosophi ac Geometrae, and many important original works from the 18th and 19th centuries.[2][3] Generally, the collection's strengths were in the early modern period, and they included strong holdings in the history of mathematics, astronomy, and color theory.[3]

History

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The Library was founded in 1941 at the Burndy Engineering Company in Norwalk, Connecticut, by the electrical engineer, industrialist, and historian Bern Dibner.[4] Dibner coined the "Burndy" name as a portmanteau of his first and last names.[2][5]

Dibner began collecting the books that would become the Burndy Library after inspiration from a list of Leonardo da Vinci's works in economist Stuart Chase's book Men and Machines.[6] The collection first grew in boxes in the Burndy factory, getting its first dedicated rooms in 1951. The Library moved to a freestanding facility in Norwalk in 1964, when it consisted of about 25,000 volumes.[7]

In this period the Library also began to support and publish translations of major works in the history of science, beginning with Edward Rosen's translation of Copernicus's De revolutionibus orbium coelestium and I. Bernard Cohen's translation of Galvani's treatise on electrical forces in muscular motion.[8]

In 1974 Dibner donated one-quarter of the library holdings, roughly 10,000 volumes and the entire manuscript collection including 320 incunables, to the Smithsonian Institution to form the nucleus of its research library in the history of science and technology.[9][10] In 1976, the Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology opened at the Smithsonian Institution, and it remains part of the Smithsonian Institution Libraries housed at the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC.[2][3]

The remainder of the Burndy Library collection remained in Norwalk until shortly after Dibner's death in 1988. It was moved to the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1992 with the establishment of the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology.[9][11] After residing there for more than a decade, 1992–2006, the collection was moved to allow demolition of the building that had housed it.[12]

In November 2006, 67,000 volumes of the Burndy Library (47,000 rare books and 20,000 reference books), along with several hundred small manuscript collections and a collection of artwork and objects, were transferred to the Huntington Library in San Marino, California as a gift of the Dibner family and the Dibner Fund.[1] The library has offered a number of history of science fellowships, a lecture series and an annual conference.[13] It has been one of the Huntington's most heavily used collections, and it continued to grow and expand through the Huntington's multi-faceted approach to collection use, conservation and management.[1]

References

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  1. 1 2 3 Lewis, Daniel (Fall 2008). "Beautiful Ideas; Beautiful Books" (PDF). Caltech Engineering & Science. 71 (3): 17–25.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Cohen, I Bernard (1985). "Inside The Burndy Library". American Heritage's Invention & Technology. 1 (2). Archived from the original on September 21, 2015. Retrieved October 22, 2022.
  3. 1 2 3 "Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology". Smithsonian Libraries. Archived from the original on February 3, 2022. Retrieved October 22, 2022.
  4. ↑ "Bern Dibner Dies at 90; Historian and Engineer". The New York Times. January 8, 1988. Archived from the original on January 30, 2018. Retrieved August 13, 2022.
  5. ↑ "COMPANY NEWS; Burndy Takes Bid From Framatome". The New York Times. Reuters. December 6, 1988. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved February 1, 2022.
  6. ↑ Gaskell, Roger (2001). "From Collector to Reader: Bern Dibner and History of Science Collections". In Gingerich, Owen (ed.). The Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology at 25 Years: Celebrating a Collector’s Vision and Its Legacy (PDF). Smithsonian Institution Libraries. p. 4.
  7. ↑ Gaskell, Roger (2001). "From Collector to Reader: Bern Dibner and History of Science Collections". In Gingerich, Owen (ed.). The Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology at 25 Years: Celebrating a Collector’s Vision and Its Legacy (PDF). Smithsonian Institution Libraries. p. 5.
  8. ↑ Cohen, I. Bernard (May 1986). "Edward Rosen (1906–1985)". Journal for the History of Astronomy. 17 (49): 152. Bibcode:1986JHA....17..150C. doi:10.1177/002182868601700214. S2CID 126040345.
  9. 1 2 Schackner, Bill (January 9, 2005). "Burndy Library/Dibner Institute Of MIT May Move To Pittsburgh". History News Network. Archived from the original on October 23, 2022. Retrieved October 22, 2022.
  10. ↑ Gaskell, Roger (2001). "From Collector to Reader: Bern Dibner and History of Science Collections". In Gingerich, Owen (ed.). The Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology at 25 Years: Celebrating a Collector’s Vision and Its Legacy (PDF). Smithsonian Institution Libraries. p. 6.
  11. ↑ Lerner, Jane (September 15, 1991). "A Collection of Scientific Treasures Is Leaving Norwalk". The New York Times. Retrieved August 13, 2022.
  12. ↑ "New home for Dibner trees". MIT Tech Talk. December 20, 2006. Archived from the original on February 3, 2022. Retrieved August 13, 2022.
  13. ↑ "The Dibner History of Science Program" (PDF). The Huntington Library. August 2008. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 5, 2009. Retrieved October 5, 2009.
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