The collection consists of the original pages of the Perkins Library Suggestion/Answer book ranging from 1982 to approximately 2006. These pages have handwritten questions and typed responses as well as some items or materials attached to the original pages. A number of single pages are missing throughout the collection, and may have been removed or lost by individuals while pages moved around in the answering process. The collection also includes loose photocopies of some runs of pages as well as a bound photocopy version of the first 1,000 pages and a copy of the undated selected excerpts compiled by Library staff in the 1990s.
The Perkins Library suggestion/answer book was started in September of 1982, as a loose-leaf binder set up in the lobby of Perkins Library, by John Lubans. Each page in the book had a spaces for three suggestions/questions and three answers. Beginning in October of that year, groups of pages with written suggestions and questions were removed periodically, taken home by Lubans, who wrote out answers which were then typed directly onto the original pages by an administrative assistant, and placed back in the book for the public to read. Most people not on the Library staff did not know the identity of the Answer Person, which was a popular mystery for many years.
For some years, the binders were available in the Reference area after the pages filled up; then photocopied versions were bound into volumes and included in the Perkins and Lily Library stacks. In 1993, a "best of" selection was printed in a limited run in-house, and another similar set of selections were compiled into a printed version at an unknown date around that time. Starting in the early 2000s, the suggestion/answer book went online, with a version that included past excerpts, and eventually went all digital, with users able to submit questions directly through the website.
John Lubans, the librarian behind the suggestion/answer book, came to Duke in 1982 as a Public Services Librarian and brought the idea with him from a previous position at the University of Colorado's library. He answered the vast majority of the questions/suggestions in the early years, soliciting help from other University persons outside of Perkins Library as appropriate. He retired in 2001 and several others in Perkins Library assisted in contributing to the book in its later forms. At some point in the late 1990s, Reference Librarian Ken Burger became the Answer Person, and starting at some point in the early 2000s, John Little contributed significantly as well.
