Finding the library's hidden gems

While most stu­dents use Dart­mouth’s li­braries as home-away-from-homes dur­ing their caf­feine-in­duced cram ses­sions, the Col­lege has some in­ter­est­ing lit­er­ary good­ies hid­den from the un­trained eye. Here is a run­down of some the his­tor­i­cal trea­sures (and risqué relics) avail­able for pe­rusal at Dart­mouth.

~The Li­brary re­serves in Baker Li­brary ac­tu­ally keeps a run­ning cat­a­log of every Play­boy issue brought into cir­cu­la­tion, from the first issue in 1953 up until the lat­est one re­leased last month. For you eager beavers in the au­di­ence, a “safer sex kit” is­sued by Dart­mouth Health and Ser­vices in 1986 is buried some­where in the sweep of Rauner Li­brary.

~One of the most pop­u­lar at­trac­tions at Rauner Li­brary ac­ces­si­ble to the pub­lic is a first edi­tion copy of the Book of Mor­mon. In fact, be­cause Dart­mouth is one of the only places in the world to offer open brows­ing of a gen­uine first edi­tion copy of the sa­cred text, Dart­mouth serves as a site of pil­grim­age of sorts for wide-eyed Mor­mons.

~Sher­man Art Li­brary of­fers a fully il­lus­trated copy of the Kama Sutra, but it’s for in li­brary use only… so we’re not quite sure how that works out.

~Also read­ily at one’s dis­posal in Rauner Li­brary are an­cient Mesopotamian tablets. The cone-shaped tablets are in­scribed with cuneiform writ­ing cham­pi­oning the con­quests and majesty of an­cient Isin King Lipit-Ishtar.

~Aside from the afore­men­tioned good­ies, Rauner Li­brary also has a first edi­tion of Shake­speare’s First Folio, a sec­ond edi­tion man­u­script of Brute Chron­i­cle de­tail­ing Eng­land’s his­tory pre-1430, and two leafs of the Guten­berg Bible.

For more in­for­ma­tion on these and other trea­sures lurk­ing in the Col­lege li­braries, visit www.​raunerlibrary.​blogspot.​com.