James B. Hunt Jr. Library

Story

The James B. Hunt Jr. Library is the second main library of North Carolina State University (NCSU) and is located on the University's Centennial Campus. The $115 million facility opened in January 2013 and is best known for its architecture and technological integration, including a large robotic book storage and retrieval system which houses most of the university's engineering, textiles, and hard sciences collections. The library is named after James Baxter "Jim" Hunt, Jr., the four-term 69th and 71st Governor of North Carolina. NCSU Libraries is part of the Triangle Research Libraries Network (TRLN), which shares books between North Carolina State University, Duke University, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and North Carolina Central University.Architecture and designPlanning for the Hunt Library began in January 2008 and continued through August of the same year. Norwegian design firm Snøhetta, best known for their work on the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, served as lead designer while Raleigh-based Pearce Brinkley Cease & Lee (now Clark Nexsen) was hired as executive architect. Groundbreaking took place on October 23, 2009.A major impetus for the library's construction was to reduce the university's "seating gap," the numerical difference between actual study space in campus libraries and NCSU's goal of providing seats for 20% of the student population. When the project's budget was cut by $11 million in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2007-08, the bookBot was one of several innovations to emerge, enabling architects to design a smaller building without sacrificing seating. The completed library building covers more than 221000sqft, is 88ft high at its tallest point, and its five floors can hold 1,700 students.