‘Warmth My Heart and Light My Mind’

If St. Joseph Memorial Chapel is the spiritual heart of Holy Cross, Dinand Library is the College’s intellectual equal — a sentiment captured in a 1927 Boston Herald editorial praising the library’s opening that fall: 

“The college has created for itself in this new building a center for the intellectual life of its students and faculty as excellent to its own purpose as the chapel on the Mount is to its service as center of the religious life of the college.” 

The library’s unveiling marked the triumphant finale of an ambitious undertaking led by then-President Rev. Joseph N. Dinand, S.J., who ultimately transformed a small circulating library located in two rooms in Beaven Hall into an architectural and scholastic jewel on Mount St. James.

“Within three years of its dedication, a distinguished American educator and librarian hailed the Dinand Library as one of the ten greatest college libraries in America,” wrote Irving T. McDonald, Dinand librarian, in 1933. He noted, however, “The library itself advances no such claim. It does not aspire to comparison. It would like to be most useful, and a most memorable source of enrichment to those whom it is privileged to serve.” 

In the nine decades following its opening, the library has done just that, enriching the minds of generations under the hushed glow of reading room lamps and within the (mostly) quiet alcoves of its thoughtfully curated spaces. With insights from the College’s Archives & Distinctive Collections team, who call Dinand’s third floor home, we reveal some lesser-known history and features of this beloved edifice of knowledge.

An accelerated groundbreaking 

In 1924, Fr. Dinand returned to lead Holy Cross for a second time and immediately met to discuss plans for a library with the College’s Boston architectural firm Maginnis and Walsh, which would ultimately design every major building on campus between 1904 and 1954. Fr. Dinand held a groundbreaking ceremony the next day. He hoped to drive momentum for the project, including attracting donations, and needed to quickly begin excavation, which would be complex given the hillside location, detailed the late Rev. Anthony J. Kuzniewski, SJ., in his book, “Thy Honored Name: A History of the College of the Holy Cross, 1843-1994.” The library’s final construction cost in 1927 was $415,000. Another $300,000 was spent on books and furnishings over the next six years, totaling $715,000 — or roughly $13 million today.

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In addition to its main reading room, the library featured a museum (pictured) and treasure rooms with rare items and a collection of Jesuitana, a periodical room, a debate hall, a faculty reading room and a large academic seminar room.

Emotional dedication and departure for Fr. Dinand 

On July 28, 1927, Fr. Dinand received a radiogram informing him that he had been named a bishop: “Dinand appointed Vicar Apostolic Jamaica.” He tried to turn down the promotion, but received the reply: “Fr. General appreciates your feeling. Church demands sacrifice: God will bless generous acceptance.” The directive was shocking and bittersweet for Fr. Dinand, who had hoped to complete a typical six-year term as president, historian Fr. Kuzniewski wrote.

A brick from the Holy Door of St. Peter’s in Rome, which is sealed and opened only at the pope’s direction in Jubilee years, was placed directly above the cornerstone. Fr. Dinand, who had intended to name the library for former College President Rev. Joseph Hanselman, S.J., was surprised at the dedication when it was revealed that the new library would be named after him. Fr. Kuzniewski wrote of Fr. Dinand’s emotional departure from the College weeks later: “On the afternoon of November 30, students lined Linden Lane to bid him farewell, the seniors in caps and gowns at the end of the drive, the faculty on the O’Kane porch. Fr. Dinand wept as he responded to the applause. It was hard to leave Holy Cross, he said; the College had been his home; and he told the students that he had requested a holiday for them. They all knelt down to receive his blessing, then resumed their cheers as his car passed slowly through their ranks.”

Facade and terrace 

The library’s exterior showcases a classical facade of limestone and brick and features eight Ionic columns rising 35 feet high. The entablature quotes a line from the Gospel of John: UT COGNOSCANT TE SOLUM DEUM VERUM ET QUEM MISISTI JESUM CHRISTUM (“That they might know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent”).

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The library’s exterior showcases a classical facade of limestone and brick and features eight Ionic columns rising 35 feet high.

Beneath each window on the left side of the facade are “emblems of four academic disciplines concerned with individual personal development: RELIGIO (religion), PHILOSOPHIA (philosophy), ARS (art) and LITERAE (literature),” wrote Rev. Edward Vodoklys, S.J., ’72, in his 1997 book, “Lessons in Stone: The Latin Inscriptions of Holy Cross.” Under the windows on the right are disciplines Fr. Vodoklys described as “more public or practical in nature”: HISTORIA (history), SCIENTIA (science), MEDICINA (medicine) and JUS (law). 

In recent years, College Archives unearthed a July 1926 blueprint from architectural firm Maginnis and Walsh outlining plans to add a Latin inscription from Psalm 42:3 over the library’s main doorway: EMITTE LUCEM TUAM (“Send forth thy light”).

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A July 1926 blueprint from architectural firm Maginnis and Walsh outlining plans to add a Latin inscription from Psalm 42:3 over the library's main doorway: EMITTE LUCEM TUAM ("Send forth thy light").

For reasons unknown, the phrase was never immortalized in stone. At the time of the blueprint’s discovery, Fr. Vodoklys shared his thoughts on the proposed addition. “I suspect that the phrase from the psalm was intended to suggest the wisdom of the ages contained in the library that would shine forth as a sign of God’s glory,” he said, citing the Jesuit motto: Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (“For the greater glory of God”).

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In 1979, philanthropists Iris and B. Gerald Cantor gifted the College Enzo Plazzotta’s bronze sculpture, “The Hand of Christ,” which is installed on a brick base at the foot of the final flight of granite steps leading to the library’s entrance.

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Entryway rotunda

Usually covered by a large doormat to absorb the Worcester snow and rain, the floor of the library’s entryway rotunda features a cross inlay in marble and lies beneath a ceiling of honeycombed intaglio (engraving) decorated in gold leaf. The globe is original to the library and can often be spotted in archival photos alongside a collection of maps and atlases at the south end of the main reading room.

On the right side of the rotunda stands the bronze statue, “Saint Martin of Tours,” by sculptor Frederick Charles Shrady. The statue depicts Martin, a 4th-century Roman soldier who, according to legend, tore his cloak in half to share with a beggar, whom he later dreamt was Christ. On either side of the rotunda are bronze castings of Auguste Rodin’s “Bust of St. John the Baptist” and “Benedict XV” — two of more than 10 works by Rodin that were gifted to Holy Cross by the Cantors.

Entryway stained glass 

Mounted on the east and west walls of the rotunda entryway are two arched stained glass windows, made by Charles J. Connick of the Connick Co., Boston. While the stained glass appears to be backlit by natural light, they are in fact illuminated by electric bulbs, and the windows swing out to facilitate replacement, says Lisa Villa ’90, public services and engagement archivist.

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The stained glass windows depict biblical scenes and were anonymously gifted to the library in 1938 in memory of Rev. Michael Earls, S.J., class of 1896, and Rev. Edward J. Fitzgerald, class of 1888.

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The main reading room has not changed significantly since the library’s unveiling in 1927.

Main reading room 

Constructed with heavy cork flooring to absorb sound, the main reading room (above) measures 105 feet in length and 65 feet in width and has not changed significantly since the library’s unveiling in 1927. The dramatic Renaissance revival space is lined by columns and designed to harmonize natural and artificial light. Tall windows as well as a lofted clerestory (a high wall with windows at the top) let in light from outside. And, wrote McDonald in 1933, “In the evening, the hall is illuminated by an efficient system of indirect lighting supplied from overhead chandeliers, the adequacy of which has been the subject of satisfactory scientific test.” To change bulbs in the chandeliers, College electricians ascend a ladder on the library roof, unlock a door to a scuttle hole, crawl across a catwalk running the length of the library, then carefully climb onto a metal beam to unsnap the cover of the lights — which then reveal an open view down into the reading room below.

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The north wall features a balcony from which, according to lore, a Jesuit could stand to monitor the studious masses below.

As described by McDonald, below the clerestory and carved into stone is “an imposing roster of immortal names in Catholic Culture,” including St. Francis Assisi, St. Augustine and Michelangelo. During his “Hidden in Plain Sight” virtual tour, Tom Cadigan ’02, director of alumni regional and special programs, noted, “These engravings, while inspirational, only represent male figures; they are somewhat of a historical echo in their own right — a mid-1920s, Catholic worldview that, in many ways, mirrored Holy Cross of that era when Dinand opened its doors, an era when the College was all-male, several decades before coeducation.”

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Delivery desk 

Directly below the balcony sits the delivery desk. In 1933, McDonald wrote of this important post: “Here is the ordinary contact point between the Library and its clients, and here are filed in space economizing trays the records needful for all customary transactions. Here, too, is the telltale criminal intelligence department, where the secrets of the Blacklist are hid, with its nefarious story of overdues, fines and lost books.”

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An artist's rendering of the main reading room.

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Replica of an East Indiaman

A model of the 18th-century “Earl of Abergavenny” is encased in glass on the south wall of Dinand’s main reading room and is the only known replica of an East Indiaman vessel. The ship’s captain, John Wordsworth, was the brother of poet William Wordsworth. John Wordsworth was killed when the ship sank in 1805, and the loss had a significant impact on the poet’s literary work.

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A model of the 18th-century “Earl of Abergavenny.”

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Little stack stairways

Through the 1960s, the library used call slips and runners, or pages, to retrieve requested books from the multi-leveled stacks, which for decades were accessible only to library staff. “The idea of an open library is a more modern concept,” Villa explains.

In 1933, McDonald wrote, “Pages are in attendance in the stacks daily from one o’clock until 9:30 p.m., except Saturdays and Sundays, whose principal duty it is to locate requested books, whether catalogued or not, and to forward them immediately to the charging desk of the reading room.” The staircases allowed pages to quickly run between stack levels, and a dumbwaiter, still in use today, moved books between library floors.

Abandoned staircases 

Once bustling, two winding staircases climbing the east and west sides of the building are now abandoned, accessible only to staff. When in widespread use, the stairways were accessed by students via wooden doors tucked into either side of the library’s main entrance.

With the addition of the Hiatt wings to the library in the late 1970s, the staircases became private. However, vestiges of their previous use remain, like the black and gold sign for “The Joseph J. Reilly Room.” Reilly, class of 1904, donated his personal library of 8,000 volumes to the College, many of which can still be found on the shelves of the Levis Browsing Room, marked with gold star stickers on their spines.

Browsing room 

In a still image captured from a video shot in the early 1940s, students can be seen in the now-Levis Browsing Room lounging on a bearskin rug, reading and smoking their pipes, shares Sarah L. Campbell, archivist. In 1933, McDonald described the space: “Designed for comfortable relaxation among good books, which may be taken from the open shelves at will, its atmosphere combines something of the home with something of the club, under the same conditions of silence and protection against distraction as prevail in the reading room. Here the student may light his pipe and browse to his heart’s content through the pleasant highways and byways of literature.”

The nearby Blue Room hallway was another casual space, where food, drink and smoking were permitted. Today, talking is allowed in some areas of the library, like the Levis Browsing Room and Blue Room, while other spaces are quiet zones. Students can text #shh to a designated number to anonymously report noise, or other concerns, to library staff.

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Tucked away along the south wall of the library in the basement are small rooms originally set aside for faculty to use as a secondary office and research space. Today, students can reserve them as study spaces.

Book repair area 

A small area still exists in the library’s basement where a trained staff member uses various tools to repair damaged or weathered books. In 1933, McDonald wrote of the space, “Here the simpler repairs are made, casings prepared for certain types of books, and actual binding done in some instances where stitching or stapling is still intact.”

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A small area still exists in the library’s basement where a trained staff member uses various tools to repair damaged or weathered books.

The Hiatt wings 

In the 1970s, library architect Paul Peng-Chen Sun was commissioned to expand the library after a report found it was operating over capacity with more than 300,000 volumes. His design included “two basically underground skylit rooms closely attached to each side of the present reading room,” as well as reconfigured space for administrative services, the reserve room, archives and a new circulation desk. In total, the renovation cost roughly $2.85 million and was supported by College trustee Jacob Hiatt of Worcester. He was surprised when then-President Rev. John E. Brooks, S.J., ’49, announced at the May 1979 opening that the new wings would be dedicated to the memory of Hiatt’s parents, Joshua and Leah Hiatt, and other victims of the Holocaust. Author and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel spoke at the dedication: “Nothing can be more urgent for our generation than to remember those days. Not to remember would turn us into accomplices of the killers.”

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Sunken fireplace 

When the Hiatt wings were added to the library in 1979, architects raised flooring on the first floor, resulting in sunken areas, as seen around this fireplace in the visual arts wing.

Under a portrait of Bishop Fenwick, an inscription on the fireplace mantle reads, “HERE FRIEND A DUAL COMFORT FIND/WARMTH MY HEART AND LIGHT MY MIND.” The long cushions are a popular student napping spot, according to library staff.

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As part of the renovations, some outdoor walls and windows became interior, as seen in this third-floor view into the main reading room from a landing outside Archives & Distinctive Collections, which was an unfinished loft space when the library first opened, and now preserves the College’s history.