Rubenstein Library Renovation

Student Workers Leave Their Mark on the Library

Duke Libraries — Thu, 09 May 2013 14:16:26 +0000

Graduating library student workers and their supervisors gather outside the Gothic Reading Room.

Every year, about 50 library student workers graduate from Duke. Many of them have worked for the Libraries their entire four years at Duke, and have made indispensable contributions to our mission. So this past Monday, April 22, University Librarian Deborah Jakubs [...]

Goodnight, Stacks

Duke Libraries — Thu, 09 May 2013 13:18:06 +0000

Well, it’s finally happened. The 2,065 newspaper boxes and volumes and 8,526 pamphlets, books, and ledgers that could not move in January or February have finally been sent to the LSC. We also moved our framed art collection from the stacks to our swing space, where we have an ingenious new storage solution (stay [...]

Scaffolding Installation in Library Stairway: April 9-11

Duke Libraries — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 20:26:40 +0000

April 9-11: Please excuse our scaffolding here, and use the other staircase!

On April 9-11, the staircase on the right side of the 1928 tower entrance of Rubenstein Library will be closed while workers remove a tapestry above the steps. This will require some temporary scaffolding to be installed for a few days, during which [...]

1091 Project: Portrait of the Student Technician

Duke Libraries — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 17:35:38 +0000

This month on the 1091 Project we discuss an essential part of almost every conservation department, student technicians. Without our students we could not keep up with the sheer amount of materials that come to the lab. This week is spring break, so [...]

The Move by the Numbers

Duke Libraries — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 20:34:32 +0000

After a month of intensive activity, the largest and most complicated phase of the Rubenstein Library move wrapped up as we bid farewell to William B. Meyer, our wonderful library movers, on Feb 12. In the 24 days that these 15 movers were onsite they relocated more than 30,000 linear feet of rare books, [...]

Game Day

Duke Libraries — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 14:36:14 +0000

The big game — UNC vs. Duke — may be tonight at Cameron, but we’ve been preparing for weeks with our school-colored Big Blues. Normally, we use these carts to transport library materials around the Triangle. Lately, these carts have been helping us get Rubenstein collections to the LSC [...]

Audubons on the move

Duke Libraries — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 21:33:50 +0000

One of the last (but not least!) collections to move during our Big Move was our set of John James Audubon’s Birds of America. The Rubenstein Library is fortunate to have a complete double elephant folio set, published between 1827 and 1838. Only 120 sets are known to [...]

Week 5 is Done!

Duke Libraries — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 23:15:32 +0000

We have rounded the final turn and are in the homestretch of our collections move! Consequently, we’re seeing a lot more of this:

Empty shelving in our former stacks.

And of this:

Folio volumes from the History of Medicine Collections, in their new shelf locations.

And [...]

Standing Up (and Kneeling) for Our Collections

Duke Libraries — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 20:28:49 +0000

It’s week five of our collections move, and the Rubenstein is a flurry of activity. We won’t sit down until all of our collections are moved!

Joshua Larkin Rowley and Noah Huffman, too busy checking materials into our new stacks to find a chair.

The oversize [...]

Week 4 is done!

Duke Libraries — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 20:26:23 +0000

We only have 2 weeks of moving left, thank goodness. We’re starting to see some results after all this hard work. We have been striving to send 3 full trucks to LSC everyday – that is 54-60 of these big blue carts per day!

Big Blues on the way to [...]