Fact Sheet: The NC State University Libraries
Our services and expertise
Enabling success for students and researchers
- Librarians consult and collaborate with faculty and students in all areas of teaching, learning, and research
- Reference, research support, interlibrary loan, and collection access services for the NC State community
- Data science, visualization, digital media, and Geographic Information System services
- "Course Tools" for students—a guide to library resources for every course at the university
- Technology Lending: laptops, iPads, cameras, calculators, gaming, virtual reality tools, and more
- Workshops and events complementing curricula and research in all disciplines
- Open Knowledge Center, collaborating with scholars on open knowledge, intellectual property, and copyright issues
- Only full U.S. patent and trademark depository in the region
- Host for NC LIVE, offering a wide array of digital resources to all North Carolina residents
Our spaces
The most used resource on campus
Two main libraries—the D. H. Hill Jr. Library and the James B. Hunt Jr. Library—as well as the Harrye B. Lyons Design Library, the Natural Resources Library, and the William Rand Kenan Jr. Library of Veterinary Medicine, with more than 2.5 million total user visits per year.
Key spaces include:
- Learning Commons and other study spaces with desktop computing
- Faculty Research Commons, Graduate Student Commons
- Reservable study rooms
- Large-scale, immersive visualization spaces at the Hill and Hunt Libraries
- Digital media creation facilities
- Dataspace (Hunt) and Data Experience Lab (Hill) with advanced computing, software, training, and consultation
- iPearl Immersion Theater for panoramic display of faculty and student work (Hunt)
- iPearl Innovation Studio features unique, interactive displays and emerging technologies (Hill)
- Makerspace and Maker Studio offering 3D printing and scanning and other specialized tools (Hill & Hunt)
- NC State Gaming and Esports Lab (Hunt)
- Gaming and VR Studio for creating and exploring virtual worlds (Hill)
- Special Collections Reading Room and Exhibit Gallery (Hill)
Our collection
An engine for research and learning
Strengths in agriculture, architecture, biological sciences, design, engineering, entomology, forest resources, mathematics, physical sciences, statistics, textiles, and veterinary medicine.
- More than 3.3 million titles, and 119,490 print and electronic serial subscriptions (119,081 of them electronic)
- 806 bibliographic databases and many electronic full-text and image collections
- Over 15.9 million total uses of the collection in 2024/25
- More than 3.8 million full-text journal article downloads per year
- Access to over 1.3 million electronic books
- Catalog cross-searching capabilities and item delivery service with the Triangle Research Libraries Network (NC State, Duke, NC Central, and UNC–Chapel Hill)
- Rare and unique materials in all formats and documentation of university history. Highlights include premier archives in architecture, entomology, simulation, and zoological health.
