Textiles Library on Centennial Campus: 1990 — Present

In 1991, the Burlington Textiles Library was relocated to the new NC State University Centennial Campus in conjunction with the move of the College of Textiles. The new 12,855 square-foot facility offered seating for 154 students and provided collections and services to the faculty, staff, students, and corporate affiliates of the College of Textiles.

Today, in 2010, the Burlington Textiles Library serves as an essential hub for learning and collaboration on campus, welcoming over 400 visitors each day. As the only library on Centennial Campus, library staff support not only the research needs of the College of Textiles, but also those of all the residents of Centennial Campus, including students and faculty of the College of Engineering and the employees of the various companies and government agencies located there.

As part of a technology-rich environment, the NCSU Libraries has for many years provided new or emerging technologies for patrons to use and explore. One example of this is the Technology Lending Service, which allows students to check out devices such as laptops, digital cameras and camcorders, GPS devices, e-book readers, and iPads.

The Textiles Library is the home to world-class collections in the fields of polymer and color chemistry, textile engineering, nonwovens, biomedical textiles, supply chain management, fashion merchandising, apparel management, and design. The library collection, as of 2010, includes over 40,000 volumes, with 90 current periodical subscriptions and over 1500 historical titles. In 2003, the Institute of Textile Technology (ITT) in Charlottesville, Virginia merged with the College of Textiles. As a result of this merger, the library received a significant portion of ITT’s former library, consisting of monographs, bound journals, a thesis collection, technical reports, multi-media, and a very thorough collection of vendor technical information covering a wide swath of the textiles industry, dating back to the 1940s.

The Library's Special Collections include:

  • The William H. Harriss Collection of Modern Fabrics, which contains approximately 4,000 fabric swatches of twentieth-century fabrics. The collection was donated to the College in 1957 by The Sanforized Company in honor of Mr. Harriss, a class of 1895 alumnus.
  • The Speizman Hosiery Collection, consisting of approximately 450 samples of men's, women's, and children's hosiery dating from the 1930s to the 1980s.
  • The automotive fabric collection, donated in 2005 by Collins and Aikman Company, consists of swatch books with samples of upholstery fabrics used in every make and model car from 1955-2004. The library has since purchased additional sample books to keep the collection up to date, making it complete from 1955-2010.

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