"Science is a new social force. It is provocative and challenging, it holds the promise of great and distributed power and well-being, such as no other social force that has yet been conceived. Though some may see in it the signs of dull uniformity and the threat of utter destruction, it grows in vigor and in area of interest. To understand science is to know its dynamic history." — Bern Dibner, 1955.

Born in Ukraine in 1897, Bern Dibner immigrated to the United States with his family in 1904. The youngest of eight children, he grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and graduated from the Polytechnic Institute of New York (now Polytechnic University) in 1921 with a degree cum laude in electrical engineering. After graduating, Dibner worked as an engineer during the electrification of Cuba, where he discerned an unfilled need for improved methods of connecting electrical conductors; in response he founded the Burndy Engineering Company in 1924.

Building on a technical foundation of twenty-four patents granted him for connector design, Dr. Dibner guided Burndy's growth until his retirement as Chairman in 1972.

Around 1930 Dr. Dibner bought a popular book about the history of invention, Stuart Chase's Men and Machines, and immediately became fascinated with Leonardo da Vinci's extraordinary range of scientific and technical talent. Young and self-describedly "skeptical," Dibner suspected that Chase had exaggerated Leonardo's range of talents and began researching the subject himself. In 1936 Dr. Dibner took what he would later call a "sabbatical" from his company, and enrolled at the University of Zurich to study still further the history of Renaissance science. It was during this period that he began to buy books in earnest, beginning a second career as a collector and scholar that would run parallel with his life as a businessman. The only major interruption to these twin occupations came during World War II. Trained at Plattsburgh near the end of World War I, Dibner served in the European theatre during World War II. He attained the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force/Army Air Corps and was awarded the Bronze Star with two battle stars.

In addition to working full-time to guide the Burndy Corporation, Dr. Dibner wrote more than one hundred books and articles on subjects as varied as the laying of the first transatlantic telegraph cable, eighteenth-century electrical experiments, Renaissance engineering, as well as his first scholarly interest, Leonardo da Vinci. Dibner's best known work is probably the Heralds of Science (1955), a selection of two hundred epochal books in the development of science from the collection of the Burndy Library. The Heralds has become a widely used reference tool among bibliographers and booksellers.

Throughout his life Bern Dibner maintained a great interest in higher education. At various times he was a Fellow of Brandeis University, a Life Trustee of the American Technion Society, and a Trustee of the University of Bridgeport, as well as the Yale Medical Library. His dual identity as a practicing engineer and historian of science is reflected in his prominent positions in the professional associations of both fields; Dibner was fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers as well as Chairman of the Electrical Historical Foundation, President of the Society for the History of Technology, and a consultant to the Electrical Equipment Committee of the Smithsonian Institution. In 1976, he was recipient of both the Sarton Medal, given by the History of Science Society, and the Smithson Gold Medal, awarded by the Smithsonian Institution. Polytechnic University recognized Dibner's life-long support by awarding him an honorary Doctor of Engineering in 1959 and an honorary professorship in 1976.

Always an active collector, Dr. Dibner was equally engaged as a donor for much of his life. In honor of the Bicentennial of the United States, Dr. Dibner presented the Smithsonian Institution with a gift of rare books in the history of science that forms the core of the Dibner Library for the History of Science and Technology, presently located at the National Museum of American History. Dr. Dibner also provided funds for the Dibner Library at Polytechnic University, in New York, as well as many smaller gifts of books to research libraries around the country. He was also a major supporter of the library of the Technion University in Israel.

Dr. Dibner was fond of citing an article in which his friend George Sarton had sketched a Baconian program for an Institute for the history of science. Sarton thought that the ideal location would be inside a large library, or "in a modest but extensible building" located nearby.  Scholars need rapid and easy access to their tools and sources, as well as close contact with one another. Research centers that make this possible on their own premises are always the most conducive to productive interaction. This vision was realized in 1992, when the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology was established at MIT. Housed on the ground floor of the Dibner Building, the Burndy Library serves as the research collection of the Dibner Institute and is designed to be a complete resource for the study of the history of science and technology. It now numbers in excess of 50,000 volumes and continues to grow rapidly. The collections include books both new and old as well as manuscript materials, prints and photographs. Of incalculable value to scholars, the Institute and Library are enduring testaments to Dr. Dibner's learning, wisdom, tenacity, and generosity.

Bern Dibner's Publications

Bern Dibner Photos & Event