Introduction

These diaries (or log books, or journals, or many other words) escape neat classification. They are log books in the sense that they log the hours kept by monitors of the lounge/office space held by the GPA, BGALA, and SAGA in the basement of Jones. They aren't log books in the sense that often times, people writing in the books weren't staffing open hours but simply passing by or spending time in the lounge. They are diaries in the sense that much of what is recorded goes beyond simply describing who came in to the lounge and when and if the doors were unlocked. They are diaries because the people writing them took it further, and started describing the club, their own personal lives, and the lives of others. Yet all this time, the diaries are not kept by a single person but a rotating cast of people who come and go, graduate, and those who revive books left unwritten for years at a time. 

These have existed in the basement lounge for most of their existence. Below, Rachel Cholst '11 discusses finding the books there and reading through them, leading us to believe they were located there until this period and were handed over to Magill Library's Special Collections sometime after 2011, where they remain today. 

The anecdote accounted in the clip, however, does not appear in any of the 5 diaries. There is a lot unknown about these objects: why were they kept so long in the lounge? Are there more diaries that have simply went missing, or been undiscovered? 

In these diaries exists a huge wealth of information that resists catergorization into the other exhibits on this website. These diaries have existed as resources and artifacts for likely a large amount of students. This is evident not only in Rachel's account, but also in that many diary writers mention reading through the previous ones. Though Special Collections has preserved these diaries, the diaries fail to inform, educate, and empower when they are unknowingly tucked away in the archives.

In the following page you will find an overview of each of the diaries. Due to privacy concerns, these items are only available by view within Haverford's Special Collections, located in Magill Library. Should you wish to view these documents, please feel free to reach out to Krista Oldham at koldham@haverford.edu.