Dawn of a new era

On the morning of Nov. 16, 1971, hundreds of Exeter students reported to the Davis Library for duty. Their charge: Take tens of thousands of books from the shelves of the stately-but-overburdened building and carry them a hundred paces or so to their new home next door. The effort, in essence, was a relay from Exeter’s past into its future.

The new library — eventually to be named the Class of 1945 Library — was a towering new structure designed by the famed Louis Kahn in the heart of campus that could be considered a brick-and-concrete monument to a critical period for the Academy. Exeter had only transitioned to a coeducational institution a year earlier. Girls were among the volunteers in the book brigade that morning, and the school was amidst an era of metamorphosis as it neared its bicentennial. This new library stood as a symbol of the new Exeter.

Today, more than 50 years later, our library remains a place for transformation, a beacon to new generations of students who seek to discover themselves and their world. Intended by its designers to be “the intellectual center of the community,” it has fulfilled that order and more, becoming a magnet for the curious and those with an affinity for discovery.