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April Newsletter Seems to Be a Logical Time to Focus on SHOT Finances the anniversary and for the longer term, particularly in SECRETARY’S MESSAGE regard to our Editorship Endowment Campaign. We’ll be able to say much more about this in future As income tax deadline rapidly approaches for those newsletters. of us living in the US, the April newsletter seems to be a logical time to focus on SHOT finances. Our The unfortunate truth is that the price of academic treasurer Richard Hirsh tells us that overall, SHOT is conferences, like almost everything else, keeps rising. in good shape financially (with great thanks to him Those of you who are members of the History of Science and to our finance committee). However, Richard also Society may have noticed Executive Director Jay reminds us that SHOT must be careful, since our Malone’s column in its January newsletter where he operations remain dependent on support from our noted that most HSS members don’t realize how meeting Michigan consortium for Technology and Culture costs add up, with the bill for coffee alone in editing and on support from Iowa State University for Minneapolis this fall totaling almost $6,000. One our secretary’s office. Moreover, we are undertaking particular challenge facing most academic societies exciting initiatives, particularly fiftieth-anniversary today, including SHOT, is the growing demand among planning and the launch of our eTC website – but presenters to use PowerPoint for delivering papers. For initiatives do cost money. Please check out this many reasons, it is not practical or desirable for SHOT newsletter’s presidential column where Rosalind to buy its own AV equipment, but renting just a single Williams explains in more detail the financial trends in PowerPoint setup costs hundreds of dollars per day. publishing that affect us and how our soon-to-appear eTC website will advance SHOT’s goals. Keep watching our main SHOT website, and soon you’ll be able to use the new eTC to get convenient access to In This Issue certain T&C material and many special features. News of Members…….…………………………….2 eTC represents an important investment in SHOT’s future that we believe will offer great value not only to Dibner Memorial …………………………………...3 our members but also to the wider community and bring those others into dialogue about the history of Announcements………….………………………….5 technology. Similarly, we hope that our anniversary meetings will be memorable opportunities for Prizes and Awards…......……………………………7 celebrating SHOT’s past, highlighting our present-day strengths, and advancing creative discussion about our Calls for Papers…..…… …………………………..7 discipline’s future. It will be a thrill for our 2007 meeting to return to Washington D.C., site of several President's Message………………………………..10 landmark SHOT conferences. But D.C. is an expensive meeting site and we want to mark our Employment……………………………………….10 anniversary properly, while still keeping our meeting affordable for everyone, especially graduate students and international scholars. SHOT officers have begun important strategic thinking about fundraising both for SHOT Newsletter 2 April 2006 SHOT tries to balance the need to control meeting expenses against expanding AV requests, by working Society for the History of Technology Society Office: with presenters to meet their equipment needs at a History Department reasonable cost. Cynthia Bennet does a superb job of 603 Ross Hall monitoring meeting expenses, planning, and negotiating Iowa State University to find savings. Income from book exhibits, program Ames, IA 50011 ads, and event sponsorship add to the positive side of our Phone: 515-294-8469 ledger, but choosing to meet in popular cities at peak fall Fax: 515-294-6390 season presents a challenge. Email: [email protected] Website: http://www.shot.jhu.edu Fortunately, while it’s easy to spend (or lose) a great Officers deal of money in Las Vegas, it’s also possible to have President: Rosalind Williams inexpensive fun. Preparations for the October 2006 Vice-President/President-Elect: Steve Usselman Secretary: Amy Bix meeting are moving ahead, thanks to the hard work of Treasurer: Richard Hirsh local organizer Bill Leslie and his assistants, plus program chair Jennifer Light and her committee. As For Change of Address, Membership Information, always, please check the SHOT website frequently and Journal Delivery Queries between now and then for the latest updates and see our Please contact Carla Hubbard, Journals Division, July newsletter for the program and registration material, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2715 N. Charles St., plus information about tours, special events, and much Baltimore, MD 21218, USA more. Classic neon, classic cars, and classic Phone: 410-516-6964 presentations – anything can happen in Vegas! Fax: 410-516-6968 Email: [email protected] Amy Sue Bix SHOT Newsletter Editorial Policies, Advertising Iowa State University Rates, and Submission Deadlines The SHOT Newsletter is published quarterly in April, July, October, and January and is sent to all individual members of the Society. Items for inclusion will be published if st received by the 1 of the previous month. Please note that material for the newsletter may be submitted via electronic mail. Non-members and institutions may receive the Newsletter by separate subscription for $15 per year. The Newsletter can also be read at the SHOT website. NEWS OF MEMBERS Readers should verify closing dates and other information provided by institutions and sponsors; the editor and SHOT The officers and membership of SHOT wish to express are not responsible for changes or typographical errors. their sympathy to the family of James Tomayko, Advertising for books, journals, and other matters related to longtime member of SHOT, who died on January 9, the interests of the Society and its members is accepted if 2006 after a long and disabling illness, according to his received by the 1st day of the previous month. wife, Laura. Advertising Rates: Full page (7-1/2" x 9-1/2"), $200; Half page (7-1/2"x5" or 3"x 9-1/2"), $150; Quarter page (3" x 5"), $100 The SHOT logo was created by Brickworks of London SHOT Newsletter 3 April 2006 MEMORIAL David Dibner, 1927–2005 The history of technology lost a good friend and significant benefactor on 28 September 2005, when David Dibner succumbed to a sudden and unexpected heart attack. He was seventy-eight years old. An engineer and businessman, David headed the Dibner Fund and the Burndy Library since 1989 and supported the Dibner Institute from its creation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1992 until his death. With his wife Frances, also a board member of the Dibner Fund, David promoted a wide range of philanthropic interests, nurtured his own fascination with the artifacts of modern technology, and added significantly to the rare books, manuscripts, incunabula, and objects collected in the Burndy Library, doubling the number of volumes in the collection since 1993. In many of these activities, David stewarded the legacy of his father, Bern Dibner. Born in 1897 in what is now the Ukraine, Bern Dibner immigrated with his family to the United States, settled in New York City, and graduated from the Polytechnic Institute of New York in 1921 with a degree in electrical engineering. He founded the Burndy Engineering Company in 1924 to manufacture electrical connectors. The success of the company, based in large measure on Bern’s twenty-four patents, allowed him to launch his philanthropic enterprise and indulge a life-long fascination with the history of science and technology. He founded the Dibner Fund in 1957 as a private family foundation to support the history of science and a wide range of other programs, ranging from preservation of the environment to humanitarian relief and the promotion of peace and tolerance. Bern Dibner took a sabbatical from his company to study Renaissance science in Zurich, published more than thirty books and articles in the history of science and technology, and acquired a personal library that grew in size to require its own building adjacent to the Burndy Corporation headquarters in Wilton, Connecticut, near which the History of Science Society held its annual meeting in both 1974 and 1983. In 1974, he contributed one-quarter of his book collection to the Smithsonian Institution to form the core of the Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology, which is now part of the National Museum of American History’s Behring Center. Before his death in 1988, Bern Dibner conceived an institute that might fulfill the vision of George Sarton for a Baconian program to support the study of the history of science. David Dibner realized his father’s vision. Following service in World War II, David studied engineering at Columbia University and continued postgraduate study at the London School of Economics. Later, he attended the Advanced Management Program at Harvard University. Joining the Burndy Corporation in 1952 as an engineer, David worked his way up through the organization to succeed his father as chairman of the board, also assuming the presidency of the Dibner Fund and Burndy Library in 1989. In these latter roles, he devoted himself to continuing his father’s legacy and realizing his dream for an institute devoted to the history of science and technology. The Dibner Fund called for a consortium of schools to be formed in the Boston-Cambridge area of Massachusetts, one among to serve as the home for the Burndy Library and a new institute for the promotion of the history of science and technology. In due course, MIT was chosen and plans were made to renovate a building overlooking the Charles River at 38 Memorial Drive. A state-of-the-art library was built on its ground floor to preserve and display the Burndy Collection, and rooms were fitted out on the second and third floors to provide offices and public spaces for staff and fellows of the newly created Dibner Institute.
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