Touring the Rubenstein Library at Thursday's Open House

Members of the Duke and Triangle-area community attended a public open house Wednesday celebrating the renovation of the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Visitors toured the new spaces and exhibits and enjoyed refreshments and giveaways.

University Librarian Deborah Jakubs started a welcoming address with an apology for the three years of construction disruption, but from the smiles on the faces of the hundreds of Duke community members touring the library, no apologies were needed.

Instead, people saw what Jakubs, the Rita Di Giallonardo Holloway University Librarian and vice provost for library affairs, said was the successful culmination of 15 years of work of reimagining Perkins Library. New research space, modern classrooms, easy access to the extraordinary special collections in the Rubenstein and ample exhibit space – all this will enhance the experience of using the library, she said, and make it more accessable to scholars, students and the public.

Gone are the barriers that separated different parts of the library – actually three different buildings built in different decades attached to each other – requiring in some instances users to go down a floor to reach a staircase that would take them to a higher level.

Now, the library’s layout is intuitive and welcoming, Jakubs said. One of the driving motivations of the renovation was to open the special collections in the Rubenstein to a wider audience, including undergraduates.

For more photos, see the library’s Facebook page.

Below: Deborah Jakubs addresses visitors in the renovated Gothic Reading Room in Rubenstein Library. Bottom: Open house visitors walk in one of the new gallery spaces in the Rubenstein. Photos by Mark Zupan