Duke University junior Christopher Chin was working on a psychology project with some fellow students when they ran into an obstacle. “For the work we were doing, we needed space to work as a group, yet we each needed to have a computer in front of us. That sort of space didn’t exist on campus,” Chin says. Those barriers to group learning will be greatly eased in 2009, with completion of a creative new imagining of the university’s William R. Perkins Library, Duke’s largest and most central library. The Perkins Renovation Project, begun in 2003, includes a new five-story building attached to the existing library and the renovation of significant parts of the older facility. But the project is more than just an expansion of space: The renovated Perkins will offer the campus flexible-use areas for research and education, integrated information resources linking Duke and the outside world, and the latest technology for accessing, developing, and transmitting information. “The most important thing to me will be the increase in group study space accompanied by technology,” says Chin, who notes that in the future, students working on group efforts like his psychology project will be able to do research, work collaboratively, consult with the library staff, and produce the final project, all without leaving the library. “I think the student body is going to be surprised, because the way they interact with the library is going to change,” he says. The plan for enhancing social space at Perkins while also increasing technical and research resources offers good potential for making the library a central hub of student life, Chin says. “They’re really trying to tailor this to what the students want.” | 
