The above quote is from John Butcher (Class of 1966). Read the full memory below:

I attended the dedication of the library in November 1964, when I was a junior (and either on crutches or using a cane in the aftermath of a knee operation). What I remember most was David Rockefeller’s charm and wit, nicely captured in Ellwood Carter’s report in the BDH. Strangely, I barely remember using the John Hay Library (except when as a senior those of us taking Peter McGrath’s course on constitutional law went there to examine allegedly pornographic material then the subject of a Supreme Court case) but I certainly have lots of memories of the Rock. Two stand out. Later in my junior year I wrote a paper for Philip Leis’s course on religions of non-literate people using monographs kept in the Rock. It was my first real experience of not merely reading such scholarly work but really trying to interpret it in light of the issue I was examining. The other memory is much more personal: sometime during my senior year I discovered a couple stunning family secrets simply by studying a few of the multitude of directories of various organizations and institutions held in the library. I still feel a shiver of excitement whenever I set foot in a great library.