This book presents and appraises seven college and university libraries designed by Perry Dean Rogers & Partners of Boston. The firm has been designing campus libraries for the past 30 years. These projects are the most recent in an oeuvre of some 29 libraries designed and constructed for some 27 colleges and universities around the country. The libraries in this book were designed and constructed over a 12-month period (with the exception of one, Gault) for 6 different institutions. They represent some of the latest thinking about this complex building type, and demonstrate a wide variety of solutions. The authors, an architectural critic who has written about the work of Perry Dean Rogers & Partners over the past 15 years, and the director of libraries at the College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio, evaluate the success of the buildings presented in this book and suggest trends for the future. First, nine factors affecting the construction of new academic libraries are identified and discussed: (1) the growing importance of electronics; (2) the shift from exclusively individual learning to individual-and-collaborative learning; (3) community and institutional pride; (4) the emerging role of libraries as campus centers and information commons; (5) the need for less expensive ways to store print; (6) the importance of historical materials; (7) differing concepts about staff-staff and staff-user relationships; (8) uncertainty about the future; and (9) site, budget, and design considerations. Questions and tips for the planner are provided. Each of the seven libraries is then discussed by both the architectural critic and the academic librarian. Color illustrations are given throughout the text. (AEF)