The Duke University Libraries will receive its largest ever donation from Duke Board of Trustees Vice Chair David Rubenstein.
President Richard Brodhead announced the gift Wednesday, according to a Duke news release. The gift will support the Rare Book, Manuscript and Special Collections Library, located in Perkins Library. The library will likely be renamed the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library to honor Rubenstein, Trinity ’70 and co-founder and managing director of The Carlyle Group.
The donation will go toward renovating the library and increasing the library’s capacity for research, storage and exhibition. Renovations are scheduled to begin in late 2012.
“Libraries are at the heart of any great educational institution,” Rubenstein said in the release. “This renovation and modernization program will help ensure that the Rare Book and Manuscript library’s priceless collection is preserved and accessible to scholars and the public for decades to come.”
The renovations come in the final years of the decade-old Perkins Project, a comprehensive library renovation project. The construction of Bostock Library and the von der Heyden Pavilion began the project. Perkins Library was then renovated between 2006 and 2008. The final stage beginning in 2012 will transform the original library building built in 1928 and its 1948 addition.
Rubenstein has given several gifts to Duke in the past, including $5.75 million to the Sanford Schoool of Public Policy in 2009 and $5 million to Sanford’s Rubenstein Hall in 2002.
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