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About The Burndy Library

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The Burndy Library was founded in 1941 to house the growing collection of Ukrainian-born and Connecticut-based inventor and industrialist Bern Dibner (1897-1988). Containing more than 50,000 volumes in the history of science and technology, it remains an eloquent personal memorial to Bern Dibner, who assembled the books and artifacts that are still its core.

Before relocating to The Huntington, the Burndy Library was located in the Dibner Building on the MIT campus. The library's collection ranges through the history of science and technology, from antiquity to the 20th century.

In breadth, the Library aims at thorough coverage of postwar secondary materials in the history of science and technology. In depth, the Library encompasses primary sources in special areas of interest including electricity and magnetism, electro-technology, early modern chemistry and metallurgy; as well as mechanics, mathematics and optics from the seventeenth to nineteenth century. Most of the landmarks of Western Science are represented, and by multiple editions.

The Burndy contains one of the world's three greatest collections of works by and about Sir Isaac Newton, thanks to the Grace K. Babson Collection of the Works of Sir Isaac Newton, which has been on permanent deposit since 1995. Following an agreement with the Republic of Italy in 1999, the Burndy acquired the private library of Vito Volterra, adding remarkable depth to its collection of books in late 18th and 19th century physics-already one of the Library's strongest.

The library houses several other major collections including the Cyril Stanley Smith Collection of books on mining and metallurgy, the Victor Darnell Collection, dedicated to the 19th and 20th century bridge engineering, and the Richard and Mary Fagan Collection, dedicated to the history of electric lighting.