The D. H. Hill Jr. Library will be closed this summer for electrical infrastructure repairs, starting May 5, 2025. About the Hill Library closure →
Updated Apr 9 11:07am
The D. H. Hill Jr. Library will be closed this summer for electrical infrastructure repairs, starting May 5, 2025. About the Hill Library closure →
Updated Apr 9 11:07am
"Everything from the architecture to the chairs were designed to tell a story and create an inspiring space for students and visitors." Read more here.
"From the lobby of this award-winning STEM library, you can watch the robot zip down giant aisles and fetch a bar coded book in minutes. This Jetsons-like design enables the library to hold 2 million books in one-ninth the space of traditional stacks." Read more here.
College Raptor, a web site dedicated to helping prospective students find their perfect college, has ranked the Hunt Library as number two in "10 of the Most Amazing College Libraries in the US."
The Raleigh News and Observer explores how the Virtual MLK Project will use the Hunt Library for an immersive recreation of the 1960 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., "Fill up the jails" speech in Durham, North Carolina, using the Library's technology to allow "historical speeches and sermons [to] be better understood if -re-experienced as closely as possible to the original, rather than simply being read."
In "From Novelty to Advanced Research," Results magazine explores how the Hunt Library Makerspace creates "a place where dreams, and an occasional daydream, come true."
Calling it "a smart library for the 21st century," the Hunt Library was cited as a key factor in the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities' choice to honor NC State's Centennial Campus with its second annual Innovation and Economic Prosperity University award as one of the nation’s most innovative and productive economic engines.
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has awarded the Hunt Library a 2014 Educational Facility Design Excellence Award for furthering NC State's "mission, goals and educational program while demonstrating excellence in architectural design."
Echoing Oliver Wendell Holmes' declaration that the Boston Public Library is "a palace for the people," The San Francisco Chronicle has listed the Hunt Library among "the most spectacular libraries in the world."
WRAL explores how the extensive press coverage about the Hunt Library has raised the profile of N.C. State, North Carolina, and the Raleigh community in global discussions about innovative research and education.
Citing the need for inspiring "collaborative spaces, stocked with tools for creative projects," New York Public Library looks to the Hunt Library for the planned renovation of its landmark Fifth Avenue building.
The Teaching and Visualization Lab is a "virtual time machine" where scientists, humanists, and design professors collaborate to explore 17th century English sermons.
Concluding that "the high-tech future of libraries might lie in buildings like the Hunt," Slate.com uses NC State's second main library to explore the range of challenges and options for libraries "as the world goes digital."
Citing its role as an innovative model for the research library as a high-technology research platform, the Hunt Library has won the profession's most prestigious award for research libraries.
Business Insider has included the Hunt Library in "The 16 Coolest College Libraries in the Country," an article on how libraries inspire students with "both traditional and modern marvels."
"N.C. State asked for a library that, at its core, in its every facet, reached out to serve its students. That’s what it got," concludes Our State magazine in a feature article about the Hunt Library.
The “Best Value Schools” website has honored the Hunt Library by ranking it as 14th in its listing of the world’s 50 most beautiful libraries.
Citing its role as "architectural destination" for the Research Triangle community, the INDYweek has published a photo essay on the Hunt Library. Also featured in the same edition—the Hunt Library's green roof in an article about "Raleigh's Green Acres."
Citing the Hunt Library as setting "a new benchmark for access to immersive technologies," Library Journal features Robot Alley in its 2013 "Year in Architecture" issue.
According to The News and Observer, the Virtual Paul's Cross Project in the Hunt Library's Teaching and Visualization Lab has "created a new approach to scholarly research that employs a host of disciplines and technologies."
Almost everyone who enters the Hunt Library immediately loves the chairs. Now NC State Institute for Advanced Analytics grad students Peter Baumgartner and Jake Frost, as well as Erica Shirts Frost, have created the Chairs of Hunt Library blog to explore their stories.
Drawing comparisons to the work of Thomas Jefferson and Stanford White at UVA, Inform: Architecture + Design in the Mid-Atlantic cites the Hunt Library "as a symbol of how long-held plans can be turned into lasting inspiration."
Canada's premier news outlet, The Globe and Mail, explores the Hunt Library as the "university library of the future," a space where "books are important but people are central."
Each year American Libraries magazine honors libraries that "are shining examples of innovative architecture that addresses user needs in unique, interesting, and effective ways." For the second year in a row, the NCSU Libraries has been recognized, this year for helping to "build the future" with the "award-winning design of the James B. Hunt Jr Library."
Library Journal features the Hunt Library as the cover story—"Tomorrow, Visualized"—for its annual Library by Design supplement. And Rebecca T. Miller's editorial "Learning from NCSU: Where Innovation and Investment Meet" explains and celebrates "what a great library can bring to a campus.
Forbes.com and SAP focus on the Hunt Library in a piece on "reinventing libraries for the future."
Higher Ed Tech Decisions explores how the Hunt Library creates "a digital playground that inspires research and innovation."
Fox 8 highlights the Hunt Library Game Lab as it explores how NC State software brings crime scene investigation into the 21st century.
Does the Hunt Library promote a type of learning in which books are "lost in the shuffle"? Or does it "serve its patrons in fostering reading and learning [with] a humane understanding of just what books are for"? In "The 'Bookless' Library" and "Are Libraries for Books or People?" two writers (one a recent NC State grad) for The American Conservative produce dueling articles to explore the role of the Hunt Library in the future of reading and research.
While the Hunt Library isn't really "short on books," (more than 30,000 are on open shelving and 1.5M are in the bookBot!), Time magazine's "Tech" site opens a "welcome to the library of the future" piece with a discussion of NC State's new library.
The magazine of the American Institute of Architects explains why the Hunt Library is an iconic social monument.
Citing the Hunt Library as its core example, Ploughshares magazine reminds us: "It is with good reason that we remember the Library of Alexandria today as a fulcrum of intellectual curiosity and invention. Just as libraries modernized with the invention of printing, why can’t libraries today enjoy another, digital renaissance?"
Commenting that "this new library . . . was clearly designed to expand the idea of 'library' and introduce students and faculty to 21st century scholarship," the American Institute of Architects and the American Library Association have named the Hunt Library a 2013 recipient of the prestigious AIA/ALA Building Award.
The Boston Globe's "Travel" section chooses the Hunt Library as one of the nation's "5 novel libraries."
The Hunt Library was honored with the Non-Residential Green Design Award(This link is broken. We're working on fixing it) by the City of Raleigh at its sixth annual Environmental Awards celebration on April 22 “for its sustainable design and technology that reduces energy use by 31 percent.”
News 14 Carolina profiles the new Hunt Library, a space that Chancellor Randy Woodson explains in the piece "is about innovation. It's about transformation and it's about economic development."
The Navy's newest advanced Mariner Skills Simulator was officially unveiled on April 3, with the midshipmen of the NC State University Naval ROTC at the helm.
The official magazine of the American Institute of Architects says that Snøhetta and the NCSU Libraries "set a new benchmark for technologically-sophisticated collaborative learning spaces with the design of the new Hunt Library."
ABC11's Elaina Athans' video coverage of the April 3 official dedication of the Hunt Library observes that "jobs are the driver of this facility" and concludes with Chancellor Randy Woodson that "this is a campus you come to to do amazing things--and here you do them in an amazing space."
WRAL's Renee Chou explores the Hunt Library's place as the new heart for NC State's Centennial Campus, ending with Chancellor Randy Woodson's observation that "it's about transformation, it's about economic development--we wanted a space that says that to the world."
The News & Observer explores the over 75 different chairs in more than 100 colors in the Hunt Library, including the new Hunt chair designed by the Thos. Moser firm. According to reporter Renee Elder, “the halls offer unexpected nooks where groups of students gather. Flexible seating permits outside-the-box interaction, and open spaces seem to invite casual sprawling. Together, these things make the 221,000-square-foot building . . . seem almost cozy.”
Complex magazine's Art&Design website has ranked the Hunt Library as one of the "25 coolest college libraries" in the world in a list that includes a range of buildings from beautifully traditional spaces such Trinity College Library in Dublin to the stunningly ultra-modern University of Indonesia Central Library in Jakarta.
In an hour long segment, WUNC's The State of Things asks, "what does the Hunt Library suggest that libraries can be" and explores the future of libraries in the age of Google.
In its annual review of the state of innovation in our economy, Fast Company has ranked Snøhetta as number two in its “top 10 innovative companies in architecture.”
For twenty years, the Triangle Business Journal has annually awarded "The Space" honors to real estate leaders and projects that have contributed significantly to economic development central North Carolina. In a January 31 ceremony, the Hunt Library was chosen as the "Top University Development" for the year.
In a "first look" piece, the monthly magazine dedicated to exploring cutting-edge designs has published a photo gallery on the new Hunt Library.
In one week alone, Snøhetta, the Hunt Library's lead designer, has garnered high-profile articles in two of the most influential magazines in the US, one in The New Yorker on its redesign of Times Square and another in The New York Review of Books on the firm's impact on modern architecture.
ABC11 continues its exploration of the new Hunt Library by interviewing students on how this "new focal point for learning" is changing their experience on campus. Their reactions? "I just want to say 'thank you' to the UNC system," concludes one.
That's the conclusion of a recent Hunt Library Associated Press article picked up by newspapers, TV stations, and websites across the country, including the San Francisco Chronicle, the Houston Chronicle, the San Antonio Express, AOL.com, and the Washington Observer--among many others. The companion AP video story gives a great book's-eye view of the bookBot.
The News & Observer previews what it claims "may well be the most advanced library in the world."
Chris Seward provides a photo gallery of spaces on opening day, January 2, 2013.
The new Hunt Library enables NC State students, faculty, and partners “stay on the forefront of the future with direct access to the tools of tomorrow” and, according to News 14 Carolina’s Linnie Supal, is “giving North Carolina worldwide appeal.”
Arguing that while it “will not carry passengers into Outer Space,” this N&O editorial argues that “the new library is beyond state of the art . . . . May it live long and prosper.”
Raleigh-based Scientific American blogger Scott Huler explores the evolution of the role of libraries embodied in the Hunt Library.
Curbed.com, the design and real estate online magazine, declares that the Hunt Library “may even be enough to reseat MVRDV's Book Mountain as world's most awesome library.”
Governor Hunt's hometown paper,The Wilson Times(This link is broken. We're working on fixing it) places the Hunt Library into perspective as a centerpiece for Centennial Campus and step forward in North Carolina's history and economic development.
Raleigh's WRAL presents a multimedia gallery a month prior to opening.
The News & Observer explores the benefits of the bookBot in a "building that aims to help redefine what it means to be a university library in the digital age."
Architecture Magazine has ranked PBC+L, the Hunt Library's executive architects, 15th in their annual "top 50" firms(This link is broken. We're working on fixing it) in the nation.
ENRSoutheast magazine features the Hunt Library as building that, "intended to transform collaborative learning, is itself educating its builders" on collaboration in design and construction.
Citing their record of designing stunning projects, the Golden State Warriors have selected Snøhetta, the Hunt Library's lead designer, for the new sports and entertainment complex at Piers 30-32 in San Francisco.
--ABC11 Eyewitness News explores how the Hunt Library is "about to change how we think."
The NCSU Libraries has launched a $10,000,000 initiative to ensure that the new James B. Hunt Jr. Library can become nothing less than the best learning and collaborative space in the country.
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) unveils sketches for a transformative new expansion. The architects are, of course, Snøhetta, Hunt Library's lead designer.
According to Jay Price of The News and Observer, Hunt Library will bring a 24/7 energy to the NC State's fastest-growing campus.
Chris Seward from Raleigh's News and Observer publishes a series of photos of ongoing construction at the Hunt Library.
Completion of the Hunt Library's steel frame was celebrated with a "topping out" ceremony on Centennial Campus.(This link is broken. We're working on fixing it)
Snøhetta, the lead designer for the James B. Hunt Jr. Library, recently won a competition to design the new Museum of Environmental Science(This link is broken. We're working on fixing it) at the University of Guadalajara in Mexico.
The new NCSU Libraries Technology Sandbox, which offers a sneak peek at some technologies that will be available at the Hunt Library, gets covered in a WRAL news story.
Snøhetta, the lead designer for the James B. Hunt Jr. Library, was chosen from a shortlist of four internationally renowned architecture firms to design the expansion to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
The new NCSU Libraries Technology Sandbox, currently under construction in the D. H. Hill Jr. Library, will serve as a test-bed and showcase for technologies that will be available in the Hunt Library. The Sandbox will give NC State students access to large-scale display and gesture-based computing technologies currently used by CNN and ESPN.
A Library Journal article on the NCSU Libraries Technology Sandbox discusses many of the technologies that will be available in the Hunt Library.
Snøhetta, the lead designer for the James B. Hunt Jr. Library, was chosen by an international jury to be a co-recipient of the 2010 European Award for Urban Public Space. The aim of this biennial prize is "to recognise and foster the public character of urban spaces and their capacity for fostering social cohesion."
The March 2010 issue of Prism, the flagship journal of the American Society for Engineering Education, features the Hunt Library as an example of libraries reinventing themselves "to serve digital-age students"(This link is broken. We're working on fixing it).