Unpacking the name of the MIT Bulletin

When I was an undergraduate, I was always a bit puzzled by why the year's course catalog was referred to as "The MIT Bulletin". I never pursued it, but, as I was looking for something else, the Internet turned up a hint.

I stumbled across the online scanned copy of the MIT course catalogue for 1940. Right on the cover, we learn that, at the time, it was the annual "catalogue issue" of the quarterly MIT Bulletin. Over the decades, I presume that other issues faded away or turned into something else. But the general usage of the term "Bulletin" continued for quite some time.

It's also interesting to note the spelling in 1940 was still "catalogue"; today, it's "catalog", although the descriptions in the archives seem to use both.

I find it intriguing how at names for things, even as the use shifts away from the original reason for the name. And having 150 years of scanned course catalogs, available to anyone on the Internet, is a fascinating little corner of the Internet.