D. H. Hill Jr. Library (Main Library) Early years (1889–1926) In December 1889, the University Board of Trustees authorized $650 for periodicals and books, which were placed in a single room in Holladay Hall. The collection was overseen by the university's first professor of English and future third chancellor,
Daniel Harvey Hill Jr. Comprising 1,500 volumes by 1890, it reflected Hill's scholarly and literary interests instead of a purely scientific and engineering focus; indeed, the library was considered to be part of the Department of English. Through the 1890s, the collection primarily consisted of required reading materials for English courses taught by Hill and American and European history courses taught by Professor Alexander Holladay. The concept of a centralized library system was not considered; by 1893, the departments of agriculture, horticulture, mechanics, physics and mechanical and civil engineering had each developed their own reference collections separately from the primary library. In 1899, the collection totaled some 3,000 volumes, increasing to 3,500 volumes and 125 periodicals by the following year. In its first years, the library received little support. The annual library expenditure was $100 in 1892, raised to $400 in 1895. The maintenance budget remained below $1000 until 1925 and records of books borrowed and returned were recorded by hand in a large ledger. In the fall of 1903, the library relocated to the ground floor of the old Pullen Hall (built 1902, destroyed by arson February 1965), where it would remain for the next 22 years. Sherman was succeeded by Elsie Stockard, who served as librarian until June 1910. However, library growth remained slow; the annual library budget continued to be about $500 during Hill's tenure as college president. By 1916, when Hill retired, the collection only numbered some 8,000 volumes, excluding materials in departmental libraries. In October 1922, with the situation in a dismal state, a resolution was adopted by university alumni resolving that, "the Board of Trustees be asked to include in their recommendations to the Legislature of 1923 a request for an appropriation of $250,000 to build and equip a library capable of serving the needs of a greater and better North Carolina State College of Agriculture and Engineering." By 1923, the library's numerous deficiencies were all too clear; one dean later recalled the library "consisted of a half-dozen half-filled stacks. Nearly everything was hopelessly out of date." Following a report produced by a federal expert, the new college president, Eugene Brooks, hired James R. Gulledge (1891–1941) as the first professionally trained head librarian. That fall, all materials in departmental libraries were brought under a central cataloging system as a part of the main library. On December 28, plans were made to construct a new library building (now Brooks Hall), for $227,500. While the library acquired its 10,000th volume in 1924, a fire destroyed the library catalogue the same year. and was dedicated on June 7, 1926. Built at a final cost of $266,500, including $25,000 for equipment, it was designed by New York architect Hobart Upjohn in a post-colonial style reminiscent of Monticello. The main reading room occupied the whole of the rear of the entrance hall; it and a separate periodicals room provided space for 250 readers, or about 20 percent of the college's total student population. The second floor was occupied by graduate student and faculty seminar and research rooms, while bookstacks with a maximum capacity for 150,000 volumes were housed in the basement. By this time, the main library collection totaled 15,000 volumes, which subsequently rose to about 18,000 following the integration of the various departmental libraries with the main collection. However, only 7,301 of the volumes in the collection were allowed to circulate, with the remaining 11,569 reserved for library use.
Gradual growth (1926–1959) Despite the opening of the new library, the NC State College library system remained inadequate. In early 1926, an American Library Association report ranked the State library last among 50 land-grant institutions in terms of volumes held. Of the three major colleges and universities in the area, State's collection of about 15,000 volumes ranked well below that of the University of North Carolina's 150,000 volumes and Duke's 85,000 volumes. In 1926, the library staff consisted of James Gulledge as head librarian, with Charlotte Williams as reference librarian, assistant librarian Agnes Cooper (loans, circulation and periodicals), assistant librarian Jeannette Burroughs (cataloguing), and seven part-time student library assistants. In 1931, the collection totaled 30,000 volumes. To rectify the situation, Kellam centralized the acquisition of periodicals, increased the number of professional librarians on staff, nearly doubled the number of volumes in the collection and organized the library into five departments: circulation, reference (documents), order (books and periodicals), cataloging and periodicals (check-in, binding, exchanges). Each department was headed by a professional librarian. As a result, hours of service increased during evenings and weekends, faculty members were allowed to only keep borrowed materials for a year before having to renew them and a training program was instituted for student assistants. A browsing room opened in 1936 and the collection grew to 50,000 volumes in 1937. The University Archives were begun in the university's 50th anniversary year in 1939, and expenditures increased to $10,000 the same year; the number of current periodicals received by the library nearly doubled from 400 to 700. However, by the time Kellam left on August 31, 1939, the D. H. Hill Library building was found to be cramped and functionally obsolete. The library was no longer in the center of the campus, as the campus had expanded west over the previous decade. As Kellam concluded, "...the present library building was planned from an artistic point of view and not for efficiency and without benefit of a librarian's advice. The same mistake should not be repeated." On September 1, 1939, the day the Second World War broke out, Circulation Librarian Harlan Craig Brown (1906 – 10 October 1982) was appointed as Kellam's successor. Appointed as the circulation librarian in 1936, he had helped to transform that area of library operations; during his 25 years as Director, he would oversee the transformation of D. H. Hill into a major university library. Library holdings reached 60,000 volumes in 1940. During the Second World War, all male library staff members entered the services, including Brown, who left for the army in November 1942. He served as an infantry captain in Europe. During his absence, reference librarian Reba Davis Clevenger served as acting Director, with a staff of six professional librarians and four others. In 1945, Clevenger and the Library Committee presented a report which highlighted three urgent needs: a new, centralized library building, a greatly increased book and periodicals budget and more and better-paid staff. Construction of a new D. H. Hill Library to replace the outgrown building began in the spring of 1952, at the present location on the Brickyard. The new four-story brick and limestone library (today the "East Wing" of D. H. Hill) was completed in December 1953 and opened in the summer of 1954. It provided 900 seats for patrons, space for 400,000 volumes and the possibility of adding another two stories should the need arise. Bookstacks were closed to undergraduates, but were open to graduate students and faculty once they had been given a tour by the circulation librarian and received a stack permit. The library was formally dedicated on March 12, 1955, and the School of Design moved into the vacated library building (now Brooks Hall). A year after the opening of the East Wing, the Erdahl-Cloyd Student Union was built, occupying the present "West Wing" of the library. Library holdings reached 175,000 volumes in 1955, and reached 200,000 volumes by 1960. However, two major surveys conducted in 1954 and 1957 revealed the library to have fewer volumes per student than any other major North Carolina research college, a collection 50 percent smaller than those at other Southern land-grant colleges, undefined and inadequate coordination between the library director and the branch libraries, lack of coordination among the different technical departments within the library and a rigid and unhelpful system of closed bookstacks and stack permits. Finally, the college was found to only hold about 40 percent of materials which would be useful in the fields it served.
Accelerating development (1959–1971) From 1959, the library implemented many of the changes suggested in the reports. In 1962, the first full-time African-American library staff member, Edward Walker, was hired as a mail clerk first class (he would retire in 1992 as the bookstack supervisor). The following year, librarians were raised to professional faculty status. After 25 years of service, Harlan Brown resigned as Director of the Library on September 1, 1964 for reasons of health, and was succeeded by Isaac Thomas Littleton (born 1921) as acting Director; Brown would continue as associate Director until his retirement as Director Emeritus on July 1, 1971. Maurice Toler became the first professional University Archivist in 1965, the same year library holdings passed 300,000 volumes and the library was air-conditioned. From 1960 to 1970, library expenditures increased from $120,000 to $1.31 million. Library holdings passed 400,000 volumes and 5,678 periodicals in 1967, the same year NC State and five area colleges (
Meredith College,
Shaw University,
William Peace University,
St. Mary's School, and
St. Augustine's University) established the Cooperating Raleigh Colleges Program, allowing direct borrowing of library resources among the six campuses. On July 1, Acting Director Littleton was confirmed as Director. On December 8, closing hours were extended from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. During the summer and early fall of 1967, unknown thieves stole "at least 16 sets of journals and bibliographical works" from the Library, including two valuable sets of 18th and 19th-century botanical journals, comprising 100 bound volumes. As a result, a security checkpoint was installed at the bookstack entrance on February 12, 1968. Construction on a new 10-story bookstack tower began on November 18. In 1970, the same year library holdings passed 500,000 volumes, William V. Frazier was hired as the library's first African-American librarian and William C. Horner became the first systems librarian. Frazier had previously been a sociology instructor and assistant reference librarian at NCCU. In 1971, the individual school libraries – Design, Textiles and Forest Resources – were classified as branch libraries.
Expansion and computerization (1971–2001) A single library entrance from the Brickyard was opened in 1971. In 1972, the student union moved into Talley Student Center, and the Erdahl-Cloyd Union became the West Wing. It was connected to the East Wing by the new 10-story (numbered G, 1–9) Bookstack North Tower; opened on March 5, 1971, it added space for 1.2 million volumes and added 900 seats, 50 study carrels and 70 locked research study rooms. Coinciding with the 83rd anniversary of NC State's founding, the North Tower was dedicated on October 3, 1972. Previously, the library had had closed bookstacks, which were opened to all students following the construction of the new addition. In 1973, library holdings passed 600,000 volumes, and NC State became a charter member of the Southeastern Library Network (SOLINET), now
Lyrasis. The Jesse-Ringo Survey Report of 1957–1958 had strongly recommended the Erdahl-Cloyd Student Union (designed by W.H. Deitrick, an architect and a professor in the School of Design, and opened in 1954) be converted into an undergraduate library; the student union consisted of a cafeteria on the ground floor, recreation space on the first floor and a theatre on the second floor. The conversion to a library was approved in the fall of 1966; however, the university decided to maintain the ground-floor cafeteria due to the lack of food service on North Campus, despite protests from the library directors and staff. As the foundations of the Erdahl-Cloyd Wing were insufficiently strong to support heavy bookstacks, the university decided to locate the Reserve Reading Room and an open-shelf browsing area on the first floor. In June 1972, the student union vacated the building and moved to the new Talley Student Center. Owing to the first floor of the Erdahl-Cloyd Wing being six feet lower than the first floor of the bookstack tower, an elevator had to be installed to bridge the gap; lighting also needed to be improved on the first floor. A 150-seat theatre on the second floor was renovated in 1974, and the Reserve Reading Room occupied the renovated building in May 1975. Computerised cataloguing of materials began in 1975, and the card catalogue began to be retroactively converted in 1976. Also in 1976, collections totaled over 700,000 volumes, and a Rare Book and Special Collections Room was established adjacent to the University Archives and was administered by the Reference Department. In 1977, the library directors of NC State, UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke University began planning a cooperative program for the three major Triangle universities. In 1978, the 800,000th volume was added to the collection. By the end of the 1970s, the new bookstack addition was becoming crowded, barely a decade after it had been constructed. In January 1976, the university began planning another library addition. In December 1981, the library submitted two alternate plans for the expansion, one for a building with space for 3,000 seats and 2 million volumes at a cost of $25 million, and a revised alternate plan for an addition of about half the size presented in the first plan. Both were rejected by the 1981–1982 state legislature. Other suggestions from campus planners and independent experts included building the new addition to the west of the previous one, or adding two floors to the East Wing and storing lesser-used books in a remote storage building. From January to April 1982, an
ad hoc planning committee reviewed the planning documents; the committee submitted a tentative report in mid-April in which it recommended an addition with a minimum capacity of 750,000 volumes and 1,000 to 3,000 seats. On April 1, the firm of Six Associates, Inc. of Asheville was selected as the project architect. Detailed planning began in late May, at which time all previous concepts for the addition were dismissed. On May 29, the architects proposed a plan for an innovative expansion from both the south and east sides of the building; the proposal would incorporate room for over 2 million volumes and nearly 3,000 seats. However, the proposal was ultimately considered too costly and ambitious. A modified plan, in which only the south addition would be built, was approved in 1984 and thoroughly worked out by August 1985; under the plan, the 80,000 square-foot addition would contain bookstacks for an additional 550,000 volumes, a main ground-floor entrance from the Brickyard, a reading room to the right of the entrance, a wide staircase sweeping up to the first floor of the original tower and the circulation desk and a balcony overlooking the reading room. Library holdings reached 1 million volumes in 1981. On May 4, 1983, NC State became a member of the
Association of Research Libraries (ARL). Site preparation for the new library addition, which involved demolishing the large exterior concrete staircase leading to the library tower, began in August 1985 and ended in February 1986. Navarro Construction of Pittsburgh, PA, was selected as the general contractor in the summer of 1986, and they began construction that October. However, they abandoned the project due to financial troubles, necessitating the employment of new contractors, which delayed completion of the addition by two years. In December 1991, the Library began a trial of an electronic document delivery service for university researchers. A new and more accessible information system which could be accessed through the Internet was introduced in 1993; along with the online catalogue, it included access to external databases and journal indexes. In 1994, the year the Libraries' holdings reached 2 million volumes, NCSU Libraries was selected by the ARL as one of six "Research Libraries of the Future." Daily van delivery between the branch libraries and D. H. Hill began the same year. In 1995, the Special Collections Research Center was established, and self-service circulation began at D. H. Hill. In 1996, the Library began the current 24-hour, five-days-a week service, formed the Digital Library Initiatives Department and with aid from a tuition increase, NCSU Libraries initiated the TRIPSaver service for patrons to expedite retrieval of items from other TRLN libraries. In 1997, the NCSU Libraries become a charter member of the
JSTOR electronic archive of journal articles. In 2000, the NCSU Libraries won the first "Excellence in Academic Libraries Award," sponsored by the
Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), in the university library category.
The 21st century (2001–present) In 2001, library holdings reached three million volumes. The "Hill of Beans" cafe' opened the following year. After years of seating and storage shortages, a Satellite Shelving Facility was opened in 2003 to store low-use materials. In 2005, the Librarian, Susan Nutter, was named "Librarian of the Year" by the
Library Journal. In 2006, the Libraries introduced a revolutionary new online catalogue based on the Endeca platform, which provided users with advanced search and navigation capabilities. The library's East Wing underwent a large-scale renovation targeted at creating a study/work/recreation/socializing area with technology integration. The newly renovated wing was reopened on March 12, 2007 after a large ribbon-cutting ceremony. The 4 millionth volume was added to the library collection in 2009. On April 20, 2009, University Dining, partnered with the department of food science and D. H. Hill Library, opened the Creamery ice cream shop in the West Wing. During the summer of 2011, further renovations to the West Wing transformed an area formerly housing print periodicals into over 13,600 feet of study space, also allowing trials with the new furnishings and technology to be installed in the Hunt Library. A lounge area by the Creamery became the Technology Sandbox, with whiteboards, gaming stations, writable glass walls and interactive tables. A large portion of an area where print periodicals were previously located became a glass-enclosed silent reading room with 70 seats for individual study, marble-topped tables and power outlets; the area overlooks an outdoor terrace. The terrace had been built in 1954 when the West Wing was the Erdahl-Cloyd Student Union. Frequently used for dances; it fell into disuse after the student union moved to the Talley Student Center in 1972, remaining vacant for decades. In the summer of 2011, the terrace was repaired and modernized; the original exterior glass wall separating the new reading room from the terrace was replaced with energy-efficient glass, allowing views of the Brickyard from the reading room. Umbrella-topped tables and colourful lounge chairs providing seating for 70 were installed, along with power outlets and a new railing. In 2014, the number of volumes in the Libraries' collections passed 5 million. Though the construction of Hunt Library nearly tripled the Libraries' seating capacity from 5 to 13 percent, concerns remained that seating capacity remained below the ideal of 20 percent of users. Director of Libraries and Vice Provost Susan Nutter retired on September 30, 2017, after 30 years as libraries director. From May 2019 until August 2020, the D.H. Hill Jr. Library has undergone large-scale renovations which involve redesigning the main entrance to allow stairs to reach the third floor and allow views of the fourth floor, along with the construction of an Academic Success Center on the third floor. The former Hillsborough Street entrance, closed since 1990, has been redesigned and has been permanently reopened as of May 2019.
Design Library In 1941, the Architecture Library (renamed the Harry B. Lyons Design Library in 1968) opened in Daniels Hall. It relocated to Brooks Hall in 1954 after D. H. Hill Library moved to its current location, and has remained there since, becoming a branch library in 1971. Along with the Design and the Natural Resources collections, it was reclassified as a branch library in 1971. A further expansion in 1982 increased the library's dimensions to 6000 square feet, providing room for more study space, computers and shelving. Collections increased to 20,000 volumes by 1983 and to over 25,000 volumes by 1991. In 1991, the College of Textiles and its library moved to a new building on
Centennial Campus. The new 12,855 square-foot facility offered seating for 154 students; by then, library resources also included collections of fabrics and hosiery. As of 2010, the library held over 40,000 volumes and more than 90 periodicals. In July 2007, the North Carolina General Assembly allocated planning funds for the new
James B. Hunt Jr. Library to be built on Centennial Campus. The official groundbreaking took place on October 26, 2009, and the collections of the Burlington Textiles Library and certain main library materials were moved into the new library in mid-December 2012. On January 2, 2013, Hunt Library opened and the Burlington Textiles Library ceased to exist. Librarians of the Textiles and the Burlington Textiles Library were: Rachel Penn Lane (1945–1946), Jane Byrd (1946–1947), Katherine McDiarmid (1947–1957), Martha Lynch (1957–1959; acting), Adrianna Orr (1959–1965), Geraldine Stallings (1965–1967), Davora Nielsen (1967–1969), James Baker (1969–1976), Georgia Rodeffer (1976–1984), Catherine Pollari (1985, acting), Barbara Best Nichols (1985–1990), Cynthia Ruffin (1990, interim), Paul Garwig (1990–1998), Suzanne Weiner (1998–2001) and Honora Eskridge (2001–2013).
Natural Resources Library In 1970, the School of Forest Resources Library was established in Biltmore Hall.
William Rand Kenan Jr. Library of Veterinary Medicine The library opened in the fall of 1981 as the Veterinary Medicine Library. It was officially rededicated on November 16, 2006 as the William Rand Kenan, Jr. Library of Veterinary Medicine after William Rand Kenan Jr. (1872–1965), a prominent dairy farmer, philanthropist and breeder of Jersey cattle.
James B. Hunt Jr. Library (Main Library) The James B. Hunt Jr. Library opened on Centennial Campus on 2 January 2013 as the university's second main library and primary engineering and textiles library, replacing the Burlington Textiles Library. == Overview of D. H. Hill Jr. Library ==