Rauner Special Collections Library

Early use as campus auditorium

Webster Hall hosted the opening of Dartmouth's 139th academic year on September 26, 1907.^[10] The building had its formal opening ceremony on October 18, 1907, during which President Tucker gave the opening address and dedication in the building's auditorium to an audience of 1,700, including students and alumni.^[2][9] At opening, the auditorium was decorated with portraits of significant Dartmouth alums and tablets displaying artifacts significant to Dartmouth's history, and the hall's apse displayed a mahogany desk once owned by Daniel Webster.^[9]

Webster Hall went on to host the college's commencement ceremonies from 1908 to 1931.^[11] Due to New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation presidential primary, the hall also held debates among presidential candidates.^[2] Other notable speakers and performers include William Jennings Bryan, who gave an anti-evolutionist address at the hall in December 1923,^[12] George Gershwin, who performed there in January 1926 alongside Paul Whiteman's Orchestra,^[13][14] and Robert Frost, who gave a series of lectures and poetry readings at Webster Hall during the 1930s and 1940s.^[13][15] The hall was also the site of a significant student protest when George Wallace gave a speech there on May 3, 1967. Wallace spoke to a full audience of 1,400 in the hall in addition to 1,000 bystanders listening from outside the hall.^[16] During his speech, members of Dartmouth's Students for a Democratic Society and Afro-American Society began booing and shouting over Wallace before staging a walkout. Shortly after, students listening from outside the hall broke past police barriers and stormed the center aisle. As Wallace was rushed out of the hall, students gathered around his car, pounding it and throwing rocks at it.^[16][17][18]

Even as it continued to host events for much of the 20th century, demand increased by the late 1930s for a larger auditorium to replace Webster Hall.^[2] In December 1938, the President and Trustees proposed a new auditorium to be built once the necessary funds were available.^[19] However, in 1939, The Dartmouth reported that these plans would potentially be delayed as a result of World War II.^[20] A new stage was installed in the building in 1941, and, after the Nugget Theater in Hanover burned down in 1944, the hall was renovated to be able to serve as a screening venue for use by the Theater. A projection booth was installed in addition to concrete exit stairs on the east and west sides of the building.^[2] The Nugget's films continued to be screened in Webster Hall until 1951, when the theater moved back into a location in downtown Hanover.^[21]

Decline and alternative uses

Webster Hall experienced less use as a performance hall after the opening of the Hopkins Center for the Arts in 1962.^[2][13] The facade was crumbling by 1970 and was repaired that year, with temporary staging being used to prevent debris from falling on passersby. That same year, The Dartmouth characterized the building as a "white elephant".^[2] In 1976, the Facilities Planning Board authorized a study on potential uses for the building, including one option to convert it to a student center. College President John G. Kemeny stated at the time that "having [Webster Hall] used only ten times a year as an auditorium is a waste of one of the most central buildings on campus."^[2] A committee was then established in 1978 to study potential uses for the building. Suggestions included converting it into classrooms or lecture halls.^[2] The Dartmouth Alumni Magazine noted, however, that, because the building was designed as an auditorium, heating, egress, and the addition of floors could serve as challenges for a conversion.^[13] By 1980, a renovation plan originally proposed in 1962 was further delayed, and another plan to convert the building to a social sciences center was abandoned in favor of the construction of the Rockefeller Center.^[2]

Webster Hall assumed several other uses while the College worked on a permanent plan for the building. At one point the hall was used for art storage. By 1977, the hall was being used for dance classes, but students and faculty noted problems with the building, including poor lighting and heating, as well as splinters caused by the stage floor.^[13][22] By 1988, it was being used as a temporary student center.^[13]

Special Collections before Rauner

As early as the 1960s, Dartmouth began exploring the addition of new library spaces. In 1964, the Trustees Planning Committee tasked the Libraries Studies Council with creating a report on potential library expansions, which was released on May 1st, 1966.^[2] The report recommended using an available space in the "library quadrangle" — the block bounded by Main, Elm, College, and Wentworth Streets — for a library expansion. The report also noted the potential future need for a separate building in the library quadrangle to house special collections. Webster Hall was not explicitly mentioned in the report, however.^[2] Then Chief of Special Collections Walter Wright furthermore proposed in 1969 that the school find a new space for a special collections library.^[23]

Dartmouth's special collections had been housed in the northwest corner of Baker Library for several decades prior to Webster Hall's conversion.^[23][24] The college originally had separate units for the Rare Book collection, the college archives, manuscripts, and the Stefansson Collection on Polar Exploration, but these collections were combined into one special collections unit in the late 1960s.^[24] The special collections reading room and public services were located on the building's first floor in what was known as the "Treasure Room", while staff offices and stacks were located in various places on all four floors of the building.^[23][24][25] The Treasure Room was dedicated in 1929 as a memorial to Charles Merrill Hough, a member of the Class of 1879, and the words "Hough's Room" are written on the room's door in brass lettering. The room features stained glass windows with imagery memorializing the college's history.^[24] In 1984, the special collections were renovated with climate control and improved security systems and received additional stack space. However, the department was still dealing with "critical space issues."^[23]

Conversion planning and construction

In 1989, the Trustees authorized a study on renovating Webster Hall into a special collections library. The study was completed in spring of 1990 by architectural firm Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, providing cost estimates and design proposals for the project. The design continued to be refined, with a revised report being released by Venturi in cooperation with Shepley Bulfinch in 1992,^[2] and a completed version was released in 1993 with a projected cost of $10 million. It included plans for a climate-controlled, glass-enclosed structure within the building to house the library's most valuable items. Construction was put on hold until funds were raised for the project.^[2][26]

By January 1996, however, construction remained on hold despite initial plans for construction to begin in 1994, as Dartmouth still needed another $5 million for the renovation.^[27] Meanwhile, construction of the Berry Library, an extension of Baker Library, was set to begin in 1998, and the Webster Hall conversion needed to secure funding by late 1996 so that Baker's special collections could be moved to Webster Hall before Baker's renovation began.^[27] Dartmouth alum Bruce Rauner and his wife Diana donated the $5 million that same year, allowing construction to begin.^[28][29] The new library was thus named after them.^[3]

The school hired Jackson Construction Company as the project construction manager, and work began in June 1997 with completion planned for fall of 1998.^[2] By July 1997, most of the building's interior had been gutted with the exception of some decorative plaster and a staircase.^[30] The plans for the renovation included limited exterior alterations, most notably the addition of a ground-level handicap-accessible entrance to the west of the building's main steps. The large exterior windows were also planned to be reglazed with ultraviolet-shielding glass to protect valuable materials from harmful light exposure.^[2] Interior modifications included the construction of the aforementioned glass curtainwall box, as well as the addition of extensive underground stacks stretching from the existing Baker Library to beneath Webster Hall's apse.^[2][31] To build the below-grade stacks, a large pit was excavated between Webster Hall and Baker Library during construction.^[2] Among other interior changes, the raked balcony floors and projection booth were removed, and the balconies were converted to study spaces. A fiber optic lighting system was installed in place of the original incandescent lights, and interior plaster details were also restored.^[31]

The renovation disrupted student programming and was met with opposition from some student groups. Webster Hall was the school's last medium-sized programming venue readily available for use by student groups. By the time the conversion began, the hall had still been used to host various student programming including shows, concerts, and dance classes. Much of this programming had to be cut or scaled back as a result of Webster Hall's conversion.^[29][30] In winter 1995, the Student Assembly organized a rally to petition the school to build a new venue to replace Webster Hall.^[29] However, the school's Facilities Working Group had not come up with a plan for the venue's replacement when the conversion began.^[30]

As construction began on the new library, the special collections department began planning the process for moving its items from Baker to Rauner. The department chose to hire a firm of professional library movers for the process and interviewed three firms during summer and fall of 1997. The library and the Facilities Planning Office then held a pre-bid meeting with the three firms before sending them requests for proposals.^[32] After reviewing each firm's bid, the department chose National Library Relocations, Inc. The library also conducted a complete inventory of its special collections in fall of 1997 to determine their status before the move. The library then appointed a team to create a blueprint documenting the specific locations of the items in the collection as well as where in Rauner they would be moved to. After an internal discussion, the department decided to fully close during the moving process due to concerns about security difficulties and quality of service if the library were to remain open during the move.^[32] The library closed on September 30, 1998, three weeks before moving began, in order to allow staff to prepare for the move. It was intended to reopen at the new location on December 1st.^[32][33]

Ground floor and mezzanine

Past the entrance, the building's foyer preserves most of the details from its original construction, among them a marble floor and white enameled wainscoting. On the west end of the foyer is an elevator providing access to all levels of the building and to the handicap-accessible entrance.^[2] The foyer also features a plaque memorializing the 83 Dartmouth graduates who died in the Civil War.^[45] The foyer leads into the main hall, which serves as the library's reading room. The reading room has a seating capacity of 36 and has shelves containing reference materials.^[31][2] The room is framed by four corinthian pilasters and is surrounded by the library's mezzanine above, which was converted from the auditorium's balcony seating.^[44][31][2] The mezzanine was named the Class of 1965 Gallery after a donation from the class,^[46] and it features reading and study areas on its east and west flanks.^[31][2]

Underneath the balconies is a series of acoustically isolated rooms,^[31] including two seminar rooms available for use by classes, a quiet study room, and a study aids room containing equipment for close examination of materials.^[2] The remaining public room on the ground floor is the Ticknor Room, containing a historic fireplace, furniture, and books originally owned by academician and Dartmouth alum George Ticknor. These possessions were originally part of Ticknor's personal library and were donated to the college in 1943.^[2][47] They were then installed in a room in Baker Library before being reinstalled in Rauner during the 1998 conversion.^[2]

Other interior details include motorized window shades^[48] and coffered plaster ceiling panels.^[2] The building also has a fiber optic lighting system installed during the conversion, which includes downlights built into the ceiling coffers.^[31]

Stacks and basement

Rauner Library contains 30,000 feet (9,100 m) of bookstacks, which are located both within Webster Hall itself as well as below ground^[31] and, with the exception of the reference stacks in the reading room, are closed to public access.^[49] At the northern end of the reading room is a four-story, climate-controlled glass curtainwall enclosure storing many of the library's rare books.^[2][31][44] The enclosure's stacks extend northward into the hall's apse.^[31][48] The library also has a series of underground stacks extending from Webster Hall's apse to the southeast wing of Baker Library. These stacks link to Baker's map room, facilitating the transportation of materials between the two buildings, and they use mobile shelving for increased storage capacity.^[2][31]

Underneath the reading room, the library's basement stores mechanical equipment including four large air-handling units that help maintain the specific temperature and humidity levels needed for the library's collections. The basement also has staff offices and workspaces, a darkroom, and a conservation workshop.^[2][44]