A Treasured White Elephant

THE CATALOG: THERE ARE THOSE WHO LOVE IT

"OH GOSH NO. We haven't updated that in about a year," said the librarian behind the front circulation counter. She was referring to the feature of Baker Library that was once the hub of all academic activity, the most used resource on the premises—the card catalog.

"Sure there were complaints at first," said College Librarian Margaret Otto.

"But no one much minds any more. It just took a little bit of learning."

Once the Online Catalog gained acceptance across campus, and as the student/computer ratio grew closer and closer to one-to-one, the library quietly stopped including new entries into the files that still dominate the Baker lobby. At first there were vociferous faculty complaints, but even they were co-opted by the alluring power of the computer search.

When asked if the catalogs will ever be removed, Otto quickly said, "No, no, no. That is the very symbol of the library. It stays."

That makes sense here at Dartmouth. After all, tucked away in a corner of the second-floor landing is the Bezaleel Woodward Room, which exhibits the first few hundred books that Eleazar Wheelock and his faculty of one (Bezaleel Woodward) used to teach the first Dartmouth students. That will stay too.