Caroline York

A Class Visit to Rauner Library

Dartmouth has several libraries, and classes often take advantage of these incredible resources. My English class, "Horrors of Survival," was no exception to this! At the end of the term, we visited Rauner Library to look at primary sources for our class material.

If you are unfamiliar, Rauner Library is our Special Collections Library, which houses all of our artifacts, manuscripts, and even an Audubon book on display! 

My class covered the complicated topic of being a survivor in American tragedies. Among the books we read, Moby Dick and The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket were my favorites. Though they were tough reads, my professor was amazing at breaking down the texts and getting to the deeper meanings.

In order to bring our class to life, we met at Rauner for a class to look at primary sources from the Civil War. First, we looked at a letter from a soldier that had a bullet hole in it. We also saw photographs of both the horrors of war as well as survivors attempting to make meaning of the war.

Our professor guided the discussion around the primary objects and let us get hands-on with the objects. With a class discussion, we were able to connect the objects to our class material and readings.

An added bonus of the class was that my friend who recently graduated was helping our class. She is doing a yearlong post-graduate fellowship with Rauner Library and helping with classes, cataloging, and other tasks related to her Classics degree!

I am extremely grateful that Dartmouth has so many resources to take our classes to the next level! Rauner Library is truly an amazing place, and if you visit Dartmouth's campus, make sure to include it on your list!