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Photo Essay | Monday, June 1, 2009

The Dartmouth at Press

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12:30 a.m.: The Dartmouth leases offices on the second floor of Robinson Hall, but printing occurs off-site at the Valley News in West Lebanon, N.H.

Jun 2 | 12:00 am

Order this photo | Photo: Zeke Turner / The Dartmouth Staff

12:30 a.m.: The Dartmouth leases offices on the second floor of Robinson Hall, but printing occurs off-site at the Valley News in West Lebanon, N.H.

Editors put the print edition of the paper to bed around 1:00 a.m., and send the pages to the press electronically as portable document files.

“Ohh let me guess.. Waiting for Darmouth Again??” Printing The Dartmouth is the only thing that keeps the staff from going home at the end of the night. A sense of humor comes in handy on nights when the editors keep the paper late. This scrap is taped to the wall opposite the press.

2:05 a.m.: Malcolm Tibbets downloads the PDFs from Hanover and arranges them on negatives.

2:11 a.m.: Danny Osmer prepares the negatives to be burned on plates. The burning process selectively hardens polymer on the surface of the plates.

The plates are passed through developer and rinsed to remove any polymer that was not hardened. Jason Libbey, the press supervisor, and Osmer finish the prepress process in the plate room.

Jeff Head loads plates onto the press, which uses water-based ink. The ink is collected and recycled at the end of each night.

Eric Wright loads rolls of paper, seven miles long, onto the lower level of the press. On a normal night, it takes less than one quarter of a roll to print The Dartmouth.

Osmer checks the first copies off the press to make sure all the plates are aligned properly and without blemishes. On this night, one of the blue plates was dented and had to be reburned.

Libbey has been printing The Dartmouth for nearly 20 years. The Dartmouth’s production room in Robinson Hall is named after Donald N. Libbey, Jason’s father, who also ran the press for The Dartmouth for two decades.

2:33 a.m.: As soon as the ink has taken to the plates, Head calls “all set” to the circulation floor below, where copies of the paper are bundled for delivery.

Employees at work on the circulation floor.

2:51 a.m.: Osmer begins removing plates from the press as soon as the run finishes, which usually takes less than five minutes.

Independent contractors shuttle The Dartmouth’s bundles from West Lebanon back to Hanover. The Dartmouth has a staff of students and Upper Valley residents who deliver the paper around campus and in Hanover.

Peter Osorio ‘12 begins his route at 7:15 a.m. every morning.

It usually takes Osorio under an hour to deliver his 190 papers to offices and bins across the west side of campus.

8:03 a.m.: Peter leaves a paper at the front door of the President’s House at 14 Webster Avenue. He also delivers a copy of The Dartmouth to President Wright’s office in Parkhurst Hall.

11:37 a.m.: Annie Saunders ‘12, Deanna Portero ‘12 and Jacob Wijnberg ‘12 read the paper on Collis porch. Editors have already arrived at Robinson Hall to begin work on the next day’s edition.