"Recreation (Compulsory)"

Every year, Rauner Special Collections Library's reference staff receive over a thousand research questions via e-mail or phone from scholars, amateur genealogists, and curious individuals. We love helping people find answers to their inquiries, and we always learn a little bit more about our own collections in the process. Although the core staff consists of one full-time employee, one part-time employee, and a student worker, the entire library participates in the fun by fielding questions related to their own areas of expertise or interest. For example, one of our processing specialists has become our de facto expert on the Dartmouth Cemetery and even leads annual walking tours there. One librarian is known for his interest in answering questions related to our 20th-century printing and typography collections. Everyone here at Special Collections understands the value and thrill that can come from helping people, which is why the library is such a great place to work.

Believe it or not, one of our best tools for answering the many questions we receive every week about Dartmouth life is a card catalog. We have an index of the Dartmouth student newspaper that goes all the way back to the early 1800s and was initially begun as a Works Progress Administration project during the Great Depression. Dartmouth students workers are continually updating an electronic index of the newspaper that begins in the 1980s and continues to the current day, but there is no other way to access pre-1980s D articles except the old fashioned way. Recently, we were trying to figure out the origins of the notorious Dartmouth swim test, which has been a tribulation for the student body for at least almost a century. In hunting through the card catalog, we stumbled upon our new favorite subject heading: "Recreation (Compulsory)." Beginning in the 1919-1920 academic year, freshmen at Dartmouth were required to participate in at least one form of athletic activity for no credit. As per a D article from September 29, 1919, "the system will eventually put the entire college undergraduate body on a schedule of three hours per week compulsory recreation."

To read more about this topic or other Dartmouth-related compulsions, come to Special Collections and thumb through an index that has itself become a living artifact of sorts. Anyone at the desk can help you get started.