The MIT Press is a
university press affiliated with the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in
Cambridge, Massachusetts (United States). It was established in 1962.
History
The MIT Press traces its origins back to 1926 when MIT published under its own name a lecture series entitled ''Problems of Atomic Dynamics'' given by the visiting German physicist and later
Nobel Prize winner,
Max Born
Max Born (; 11 December 1882 – 5 January 1970) was a German physicist and mathematician who was instrumental in the development of quantum mechanics. He also made contributions to solid-state physics and optics and supervised the work of a n ...
. Six years later, MIT's publishing operations were first formally instituted by the creation of an
imprint
Imprint or imprinting may refer to:
Entertainment
* ''Imprint'' (TV series), Canadian television series
* "Imprint" (''Masters of Horror''), episode of TV show ''Masters of Horror''
* ''Imprint'' (film), a 2007 independent drama/thriller film
...
called Technology Press in 1932. This imprint was founded by
James R. Killian, Jr.
James Rhyne Killian Jr. (July 24, 1904 – January 29, 1988) was the 10th president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, from 1948 until 1959.
Early life
Killian was born on July 24, 1904, in Blacksburg, South Carolina. His father ...
, at the time editor of MIT's alumni magazine and later to become MIT president. Technology Press published eight titles independently, then in 1937 entered into an arrangement with
John Wiley & Sons in which Wiley took over marketing and editorial responsibilities. In 1962 the association with Wiley came to an end after a further 125 titles had been published. The press acquired its modern name after this separation, and has since functioned as an independent publishing house.
A European marketing office was opened in 1969, and a Journals division was added in 1972. In the late 1970s, responding to changing economic conditions, the publisher narrowed the focus of their catalog to a few key areas, initially architecture, computer science and artificial intelligence, economics, and cognitive science.
In January 2010 the MIT Press published its 9000th title,
and in 2012 the Press celebrated its 50th anniversary, including publishing a commemorative booklet on paper and online.
The press co-founded the distributor TriLiteral LLC with
Yale University Press and
Harvard University Press. TriLiteral was acquired by
LSC Communications
LSC Communications is an American commercial printing company based in Chicago, Illinois, and, as of December 2020, a fully-owned subsidiary of Atlas Holdings. The company was established in 2016 as part of a corporate spin-off from RR Donnelley. ...
in 2018.
In July 2020, the MIT Press transitioned its worldwide sales and distribution to
Penguin Random House Publisher Services.
Business
The MIT Press primarily publishes academic and general interest titles in the fields of Art and Architecture; Visual and Cultural Studies; Cognitive Science; Philosophy; Linguistics;
Computer Science;
Economics; Finance and Business;
Environmental Science
Environmental science is an interdisciplinary academic field that integrates physics, biology, and geography (including ecology, chemistry, plant science, zoology, mineralogy, oceanography, limnology, soil science, geology and physical geograp ...
; Political Science; Life Sciences;
Neuroscience;
New Media; and
Science, Technology, and Society.
The MIT Press is a distributor for
Semiotext(e),
Goldsmiths Press,
Strange Attractor Press, Sternberg Press,
Terra Nova Press
William Stout (born September 18, 1949) is an American fantasy artist and illustrator with a specialization in paleoart, paleontological art. His paintings have been shown in over seventy exhibitions, including twelve one-man shows. He has worke ...
, Urbanomic, and Sequence Press. In 2000, the MIT Press created
CogNet, an online resource for the study of the brain and the cognitive sciences.
In 1981, the MIT Press published its first book under the Bradford Books imprint, ''Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology'' by
Daniel C. Dennett
Daniel Clement Dennett III (born March 28, 1942) is an American philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relat ...
.
In 2018, the Press and the
MIT Media Lab launched the
Knowledge Futures Group
Knowledge can be defined as awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also refer to familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often defined as true belief that is distinc ...
to develop and deploy open access publishing technology and platforms.
In 2019, the Press launched the ''MIT Press Reader'', a digital magazine that draws on the Press's archive and family of authors to produce adapted excerpts, interviews, and other original works. The publication describes itself as one which "aims to illuminate the bold ideas and voices that make up the Press’s expansive catalog, to revisit overlooked passages, and to dive into the stories that inspired the books".
Colophon
The MIT Press uses a colophon or logo designed by its longtime design director,
Muriel Cooper
Muriel Cooper (1925 – May 26, 1994) was a pioneering book designer, digital designer, researcher, and educator. She was the first design director of the MIT Press, instilling a Bauhaus-influenced design style into its many publications. She move ...
, in 1962.
The design is based on a highly abstracted version of the lower-case letters "mitp", with the ascender of the "t" at the fifth stripe and the descender of the "p" at the sixth stripe the only differentiation. It later served as an important reference point for the 2015 redesign of the
MIT Media Lab logo by
Pentagram.
[
]
Open Access
The MIT Press is a leader in open access book publishing. They published their first open access book in 1995 with the publication of William Mitchell's ''City of Bits'', which appeared simultaneously in print and in a dynamic, open web edition. They now publish open access books, textbooks, and journals. Open access journals include ''American Journal of Law and Equality'', ''Computational Linguistics'', ''Data Intelligence'', ''Harvard Data Science Review'', ''Network Neuroscience'', ''Neurobiology of Language'', ''Open Mind'', ''Projections'', ''Quantitative Science Studies The International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics was founded in 1993 in Berlin at the International Conference on Bibliometrics, Informetrics and Scientometrics. It is an association for professionals in the field of scientometrics.
Th ...
'', '' Rapid Reviews: COVID-19'', ''Transactions of the Association of Computational Linguistics'', and ''Thresholds''.
In 2021, the Press launched Direct to Open, a framework for open access monographs. In 2022, Direct to Open published 80 monographs. MIT Press Open Architecture and Urban Studies is a digital collection of classic and previously out-of-print architecture and urban studies books hosted on the digital book platform, MIT Press Direct.
MIT Kids Press and MITeen Press
In 2019, the MIT Press partnered with Candlewick Press to launch two new imprints for young readers, MIT Kids Press and MITeen Press to publish books for children and young adults on STEAM topics.
List of journals published by the MIT Press
Arts and humanities
* ''African Arts
African art describes the modern and historical paintings, sculptures, installations, and other visual culture from native or indigenous Africans and the African continent. The definition may also include the art of the African diasporas, su ...
''
* '' ARTMargins''
* ''Computer Music Journal
''Computer Music Journal'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal that covers a wide range of topics related to digital audio signal processing and electroacoustic music. It is published on-line and in hard copy by MIT Press. The journal is accompa ...
''
* '' Daedalus''
* ''Design Issues
''Design Issues'' is a peer review, peer-reviewed academic journal covering design history, theory, and criticism. The journal typically includes theoretical and critical articles, book reviews, and illustrations. ''Design Issues'' was established ...
''
* ''Grey Room
''Grey Room'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal published quarterly, in print and online, by the MIT Press. Founded in 2000, it includes work in the fields of architecture, art, media, and politics. To date it has featured contributions by such ...
''
* '' JoDS: Journal of Design and Science''
* ''Leonardo
Leonardo is a masculine given name, the Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese equivalent of the English, German, and Dutch name, Leonard
Leonard or ''Leo'' is a common English masculine given name and a surname.
The given name and surname originate ...
''
* '' Leonardo Music Journal''
* ''The New England Quarterly
''The New England Quarterly'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal consisting of articles on New England's cultural, literary, political, and social history. The journal contains essays, interpretations of traditional texts, essay reviews and book r ...
''
* '' October''
* '' PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art''
* '' Projections''
* '' Thresholds''
Economics
* ''Asian Economic Papers
''Asian Economic Papers'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal that focuses on the analysis of economic issues in Asia. The journal was founded in 2000 and is published online and in hard copy by the MIT Press. ''Asian Economic Papers'' is sponsored ...
''
* '' Cryptoeconomic Systems''
* ''Education Finance and Policy
''Education Finance and Policy'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal addressing public policy developments affecting educational institutions. Topics covered by the journal include school accountability, education standards, teacher compensation, ...
''
* '' The Review of Economics and Statistics''
International affairs, history, and political science
* ''American Journal of Law and Equality
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
''
* '' Global Environmental Politics''
* '' Innovations''
* ''International Security
International security, also called global security is a term which refers to the measures taken by states and international organizations, such as the United Nations, European Union, and others, to ensure mutual survival and safety. These meas ...
''
* ''Journal of Cold War Studies
The ''Journal of Cold War Studies'' is a quarterly Peer review, peer-reviewed academic journal on the history of the Cold War. It was established in 1999 and is published by MIT Press for the Harvard Project on Cold War Studies. The journal is issu ...
''
* '' Journal of Interdisciplinary History''
* '' Perspectives on Science''
Science and technology
* '' Artificial Life''
* ''Computational Linguistics
Computational linguistics is an Interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary field concerned with the computational modelling of natural language, as well as the study of appropriate computational approaches to linguistic questions. In general, comput ...
''
* ''Data Intelligence
In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete values that convey information, describing quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpreted ...
''
* ''Evolutionary Computation
In computer science, evolutionary computation is a family of algorithms for global optimization inspired by biological evolution, and the subfield of artificial intelligence and soft computing studying these algorithms. In technical terms, they ...
''
* ''Harvard Data Science Review
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher l ...
''
* ''Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
The ''Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience'' is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal covering cognitive neuroscience. It aims for a cross-discipline approach, covering research in neuroscience, neuropsychology, cognitive psychology, neurobiology, ...
''
* ''Linguistic Inquiry
''Linguistic Inquiry'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal in generative linguistics published by the MIT Press
The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts (Un ...
''
* '' Network Neuroscience''
* ''Neural Computation
Neural computation is the information processing performed by networks of neurons. Neural computation is affiliated with the philosophical tradition known as Computational theory of mind, also referred to as computationalism, which advances the th ...
''
* ''Neurobiology of Language
Neuroscience is the science, scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions and disorders. It is a Multidisciplinary approach, multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, an ...
''
* '' Open Mind: Discoveries in Cognitive Science''
* '' Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments''
* ''Quantitative Science Studies The International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics was founded in 1993 in Berlin at the International Conference on Bibliometrics, Informetrics and Scientometrics. It is an association for professionals in the field of scientometrics.
Th ...
''
* '' Rapid Reviews: COVID-19''
* ''Transactions of the Association for Computational Linguistics
Transaction or transactional may refer to:
Commerce
* Financial transaction, an agreement, communication, or movement carried out between a buyer and a seller to exchange an asset for payment
*Debits and credits in a Double-entry bookkeeping sys ...
''
References
External links
Official website
MIT Press Journals homepage
The MIT PressLog (no longer in use, news blog for the MIT Press)
The MIT Press Reader
The MIT Press Blog
The MIT Press Podcast
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mit Press
University presses of the United States