Extraordinary things are coming to the D. H. Hill Jr. Library

Academic Success Center, reopening of Hillsborough Street entrance highlight a major renovation.

For more information about this major renovation, recent news, and updates on the project, visit the Hill Library Renovation website.

The NC State University Libraries has embarked upon a major renovation of the Hill Library. Scheduled to open in fall 2020, this project will include a complete renovation of the second and third floors of the bookstacks tower with a new open stairwell connecting these floors with the Ask Us lobby and the ground floor below. The renovation will also result in a new Academic Success Center and new technology-rich Libraries spaces, making the Hill Library NC State’s one-stop hub for learning, teaching, research, collaboration, and experimentation. The goal of this project is to enhance student and faculty success.

Lord Aeck Sargent is the renovation architect, and Stanford White and Lynch Mykins are the lead engineers. The overall budget for the project is slightly under $16 million.

“I’m excited about this project and how it continues the transformation of the D. H. Hill Jr. Library,” Patrick Deaton, the Associate Director for Learning Spaces and Capital Management, told The Technician. 

The Academic Success Center

Located on the second floor in the north tower, the Academic Success Center will feature the University Tutorial Center with tutoring, writing, and speaking services, and will offer some career counseling and academic advising services. During late evening and overnight hours, most of this space, including five group study rooms, will be available for general use.

Hillsborough Street entrance

A signature element of the Hill Library Renovation will be improvements to both entrances—the recently-reopened Hillsborough St. entrance facing north and the Brickyard entrance facing south. After being closed for nearly 30 years, the Hillsborough St. entrance features sliding glass doors that open onto a freshly landscaped Founder’s Drive and a convenient bus stop. The Brickyard entrance will feature a grand staircase that leads from the ground floor to the first, second, and third floors. Flanked by a four-story window to the west and mezzanine seating to the north and east, this design element will flood the center of the Library with natural light and vastly improve wayfinding to the adjacent floors.

The Office of Undergraduate Research

The Office of Undergraduate Research will relocate to the Hill Library as part of this project. It supports and promotes discovery-, inquiry-, scholarship- and creativity-based opportunities through mentored experiences with NC State faculty and other national and international scholars and professionals.

Innovation Studio

Located on the second floor in the south tower, the Innovation Studio will be part teaching space and part interactive exhibit, showcasing student and faculty work at NC State. It will offer and demonstrate emerging technologies such as augmented and virtual reality, machine learning, projection mapping, and the Internet of Things.

Visualization Studio

The existing small Visualization Studio on the second floor will be relocated to the third floor of the north tower. The new space will be larger than the current space, with immersive, 360-degree projection.

Data Experience Lab

The Data Experience Lab will be a collaborative, community-oriented space for data science, visualization, digital scholarship, and analytics. Students and researchers from all disciplines will be able to advance their skills through workshops and walk-in consultations. Located on the third floor of the south tower, the space will include reservable workstations with the processing power and software needed for data analysis, digital scholarship, and visualization.

Major book move

To prepare for renovation construction, Libraries staff orchestrated a major book move throughout the Hill Library. Floors 2 and 3 were emptied of books over the course of summer 2018. No books were discarded. About 200,000 volumes were moved to the bookBot at the Hunt Library; the rest were shifted to floors 4 through 9 of Hill. To facilitate access to materials during the transition, you can now request free delivery of books to the library of your choice and scanning of articles from all print journals.