The Friday Fowl at Rauner

As we have mentioned in a previous post, Rauner Library owns an incomplete copy of James Audubon's Birds of America that previously belonged to Dartmouth's favorite son, Daniel Webster 1801. In years past, we have enjoyed displaying various birds depending upon the particular holiday, such as a turkey at Thanksgiving or a crow at Halloween. However, beginning in Winter Term 2014, we here at Rauner Library decided to be more egalitarian in our display of Audubon's drawings. For the last twenty-three weeks, we have been turning a page in one of the massive tomes every Friday morning. We call it "The Friday Fowl at Rauner," and we are almost through the first of three volumes. We plan to keep going until all of the fowl have been viewed, and then we'll start the process all over again.

The Friday Fowl for any given week will be on open display in Rauner's reading room, but if you can't make it here in person, or if you'd like a preview ahead of time, be sure to "like" Dartmouth College Library's Facebook page, where a snapshot of the bird of the week is posted every Friday. A few of our more enjoyable pages this term have been the Golden Eagle and the Barn Swallow, but it's hard to choose a favorite from among all of these amazing hand-painted masterpieces. We're always excited to see what new and wonderful bird will appear. To be one of the first to witness the week's favored fowl, show up in the reading room between 10:30-11:00 on Friday, which is generally when we turn the page.

The call number for the three double elephant folios is Rare QL674 .A9 1827.