The Baker-Berry Library is the main

library A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vi ...

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native ...

Hanover Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

. The

fresco Fresco (plural ''frescos'' or ''frescoes'') is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plast ...

, ''

The Epic of American Civilization ''The Epic of American Civilization'' is a mural by the social realist painter José Clemente Orozco. It is located in the basement reading room of the Baker Memorial Library on the campus of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. The ...

'', was painted by

José Clemente Orozco José Clemente Orozco (November 23, 1883 – September 7, 1949) was a Mexican caricaturist and painter, who specialized in political murals that established the Mexican Mural Renaissance together with murals by Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Si ...

in the lower level of the library, and is a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places liste ...

. Baker's tower, designed after

Independence Hall Independence Hall is a historic civic building in Philadelphia, where both the United States Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution were debated and adopted by America's Founding Fathers. The structure forms the centerpi ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...

, stands 200 feet above campus and is often used as an iconic representation of the college. The original, historic library building is the Fisher Ames Baker Memorial Library; it opened in 1928 with a collection of 240,000 volumes. The building was designed by Jens Fredrick Larson, modeled after

in Philadelphia, and funded by a gift to

George Fisher Baker George Fisher Baker (March 27, 1840 – May 2, 1931) was an American financier and philanthropist. Known as the "Dean of American Banking", he was also known for his taciturnity. Baker made a fortune after the Civil War in railroads and banking, ...

in memory of his uncle (Fisher Ames Baker, Dartmouth class of 1859). The facility was expanded in 1941 and 1957–1958 and received its one millionth volume in 1970. In 1992, John Berry and the Baker family donated US $30 million for the construction of a new facility, the Berry Library designed by architect

Robert Venturi Robert Charles Venturi Jr. (June 25, 1925 – September 18, 2018) was an American architect, founding principal of the firm Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, and one of the major architectural figures of the twentieth century. Together with h ...

, adjoining the Baker Library. The new complex, the Baker-Berry Library, opened in 2000 and was completed in 2002.About Baker-Berry Library
/ref> The Dartmouth College libraries presently hold over 2 million volumes in their collections. Image:Orozco - Dartmouth c.JPG, Section, Dartmouth mural (1932–1934) by

Image:Orozco - Dartmouth a.JPG, Departure of Quetzalcoatl, Dartmouth mural by

Image:Orozco - Dartmouth b.JPG, Gods of the Modern World, Dartmouth mural by

References

External links

History of the Dartmouth College Library

{{authority control University and college academic libraries in the United States Dartmouth College facilities Libraries in Grafton County, New Hampshire Clock towers in New Hampshire Library buildings completed in 1928 Federal depository libraries 1928 establishments in New Hampshire

References

Further reading

External links