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Duke in Pics: The Move to Rubenstein Library

Libraries staff transport collections, portraits and more for Rubenstein reopening

Contractors place a portrait of architect Horace Trumbauer, who designed much of Duke University's East and West campuses, on the Gothic Reading Room wall in Rubenstein Library.--

Members of the original Duke family, past Duke presidents and trustees made their way back to the walls of the Gothic Reading Room in Rubenstein Library last week, overlooking plastic-covered study tables and empty wooden bookcases.  In three days, about 30 portraits of prominent figures of Duke history, from university architect Julian Abele to Mary Duke Biddle, descendant of the original Duke family, were placed with care on the walls of the reading room, returning after nearly three years of renovations to Rubenstein Library. Rubenstein is scheduled to open Aug. 24 and will be celebrated with an open house for the Duke and Durham communities from 2 to 4 p.m. Sept. 10. Beginning last Monday, about 50 Duke Libraries staff members started moving about 73,000 print items from Duke’s archival collection such as books and maps. They will be shelved in new Rubenstein stacks that comprise three floors of the building. If all of the Duke manuscript and archival boxes being shelved in the new Rubenstein stacks were placed side by side, they would stretch almost three miles long.The move requires reclassifying all archival materials to a uniform Library of Congress classification system, as well as finalizing the setup of comfortable reading, studying and archives research areas in the building for students, employees and visitors.“There has been a lot of planning put into making sure this is an open and friendly space for the whole campus,” said Valerie Gillispie, Duke University archivist.

Above, Katrina Martin, a technical services assistant with Duke University Libraries, helps move archival materials back to the stacks of David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

Workers clean and organize the first-floor Mary Duke Biddle Room, which will service as an open-to-the-public exhibit space in Rubenstein Library.