About the Collections
The NCSU Libraries is the gateway to knowledge for the North Carolina State
University community and partners. The Libraries’ collections reflect
the historic strengths of the University as well as its vision for the
future. With extensive research holdings in the areas of engineering, science, technology,
and agriculture, the NCSU Libraries is recognized as a national leader.
In addition, the Libraries’ collections
support research and teaching across the humanities and social sciences.
The NCSU Libraries collections...
Triangle Research Libraries Network
Triangle Research Libraries Network (TRLN) is a consortium of the libraries of North Carolina State University, Duke University, North Carolina Central University, and
the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. TRLN is renowned for its research collections and excellent services. The combined collection of more than 14 million volumes makes it the second largest academic research collection in the country.
TRLN patrons benefit from joint licensing of databases and electronic journals and can access the combined collections via expedited document delivery or direct borrowing.
A TRLN overlap study found that cooperative collection development joined with selective subject strengths of
each university has resulted in a very high percentage of unique titles in the combined collection.
Collections and Digital Content
The NCSU Libraries is a leader in delivering digital content to its user community with significant investments in electronic journals,
electronic books, digital media, and locally created digital collections and publications. Full-text online
resources include over 29,000 journals and backfiles, and more than 400,000 e-books from providers such as
Knovel, netLibrary, ENGnetBASE, Springer, Morgan & Claypool Synthesis, and Ebrary.
Expanding Online Only Journals
In keeping with our approach for delivering digital content anytime, anywhere to the NCSU community, the Libraries continues to increase the number of journals
available electronically. The percentage of journals available electronically is large and continually increasing (95% of NCSU Libraries’ journals are available
electronically) and the electronic version is rapidly becoming the primary format for journal publication. For the majority of publishers, the electronic version
is the version of record. This environment, combined with the growing number of publishers offering price discounting for electronic only subscriptions, the
predominance of electronic journal usage, and the extent of budget challenges since 2009 has necessitated the move of a number of journal subscriptions to
electronic only.
Read more about the NCSU Libraries' move to online only journals here
Featured Collections
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North Carolina State University History and Scholarship
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The University Archives serves as the administrative memory of NC State University, and its function is
to preserve for the future the legal, administrative, and historical records of the University and make
them available to all interested researchers. By preserving the University's documentary heritage, the
Archives also makes it possible to study the contributions by members of the University community to the
institution's growth. Beyond collecting the institutional records of NCSU, the University Archives and the
Special Collections Research Center also collect materials on student life and organizations, major campus
events, and major campus achievements.
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NCSU University Archives Photograph
Collection
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The University Archives Photograph Collection offers a rich visual record of the history of North Carolina State University
from its opening in 1889 to the present. The collection contains more than 275,000 photographic prints, negatives, slides,
and postcards, and it covers a wide range of subjects related to the growth and development of N.C. State University and
its service to the North Carolina community.
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NCSU Digital Repository
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The NCSU Digital Repository serves to collect, preserve, and provide on-going access to scholarly materials created at NC State
University including Electronic Theses and Dissertations and Technical Research Reports produced by university departments,
centers, and institutes.
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Plant Science Collections
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Major features of this collection include working papers and artifacts contributed by many of the significant
North Carolina State University researchers in the plant sciences. Collecting emphasis is placed on historical
research strengths of the university such as plant and forest genetics and genomics, ecology, and physiology.
Distinguished faculty who have contributed their working papers to date include researchers in forest genetics,
such as Ron Sederoff and Bruce Zobel, Major Goodman, a corn breeder, Charles Stuber, a plant geneticist, and
Mary Dell-Chilton, a highly honored pioneer in plant genetic transformation and an adjunct faculty member in the
Genetics Department. This collection is supplemented by first edition, seminal monographs in plant genetics
and genomics. The B.W. Wells collection, described below and in more detail in this
article
features photographs and hand-tinted glass lantern slides, which chronicle an early attempt at documenting and
preserving unique plant communities in North Carolina. These Plant Science Collections provide an outstanding
resource for scholars interested in studying the many significant contributions to this field by NCSU researchers.
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B. W. Wells - Pioneer Ecologist
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The story of pioneer ecologist and NC State professor B. W. Wells is told by the wealth of excellent photographs that Wells took to document his research. The NCSU Libraries and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences have partnered to preserve, identify, digitize, and display these images.
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Green 'N' Growing: The History of Home Demonstration and 4-H Youth Development in North Carolina
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Drawing upon the rich historical records found in the University Archives, the collection provides valuable information about women, children, race relations, education, agriculture, and rural life in North Carolina during the twentieth century.
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InsideWood
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The InsideWood project integrates wood anatomical information from the literature and original observations into an
internet-accessible database useful for research and teaching. InsideWood is the largest known database for modern dicot
wood anatomy with over 5,500 records representing 8,000 species.
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Entomological Archive
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This internationally recognized research archive originated with Zeno P. Metcalf, professor of entomology and
zoology at NC State from 1912 to 1950. Dr. Metcalf dedicated his life to the study of Homoptera, amassing a
collection that contained virtually every word published on the insect order from 1771 through 1955. Subsequent
contributions by NC State researchers such as David A. Young built upon Metcalf's work, resulting in a collection
of some 1,150 rare books and 11,000 monographs, journals, and papers. Other important contributors to the archive
include Clyde F. Smith, whose research on the insect family Aphididae yielded more than 1,400 papers, pamphlets,
and books dating from 1758; and Maurice Hugh Farrier, who compiled a comprehensive collection of publications on mites.
Significant external resources acquired for the archive include the Friedrich F. Tippmann Collection, comprising
975 monographic titles and periodicals, some of which are among the rarest entomological works in the world; and
Papillons and Insectes, two rare portfolios of prints by Eug'ne Alain S'guy that were published in the 1920s.
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S'guy's Insectes and Papillons
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Two extremely rare portfolios created by Eugene Alain (E. A.) S'guy. Produced using the pochoir technique, which entails hand
coloring each plate through a large number of stencils. Portfolios consist of 23 pages each, including 16 plates and 4 pattern pages. Published 1920s.
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Architectural Archive
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North Carolina State University has a distinguished history in relation to design, architecture, and
landscape architecture, particularly modernist architecture. The Architectural Archive serves as the
primary collection of architectural materials in the State of North Carolina and as the focus of the NCSU Libraries'
efforts to build a premier research collection that reflects the university's distinguished history in design and
architecture. The foundations of the Architectural are the papers of a number of faculty who founded the School of
Architecture in 1948 and quickly developed an international reputation for innovation, experimentation, and
modernist design. Collectively these holdings contain thousands of drawings and photographs and are rich resources
for the study of twentieth-century architecture.
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The Built Heritage of North Carolina
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The Built Heritage of North Carolina" provides access to documentation on hundreds of buildings and
structures in North Carolina dating from the 1700s to the early 1900s. Buildings represented in this project
include well-known examples of historic architecture, such as Baldhead Lighthouse, the Bellamy Mansion
in Wilmington, and Blandwood in Greensboro.
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Browse architecture collections
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History of Computing and Simulation Archive
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The history of computing collection and simulation archive are both premier collecting areas that
include significant materials from the general collections along with significant unique and primary
collections housed in the Special Collections Research Center. Built in support of strong university
programs in computer science, electrical and computer engineering, industrial and systems engineering,
and related disciplines, the general computing and simulation collections encompass print and electronic books,
significant print and online journal collections, and extensive collections of technical reports.
Special Collections houses the papers of several NC State faculty members and of important scholars in the
development of computer science, electrical engineering, and simulation, rare books, and seminal texts from the
early and mid-twentieth century in each discipline.
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Browse history of computing collections
Browse simulation collections
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Geospatial (GIS) Data Collection
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The NCSU Libraries Geospatial (GIS) Data Collection is comprised of numerous datasets dating back to the 1990s.
The most detailed and highest priority datasets have been acquired from North Carolina's state, county, and municipal
governments, and contain information on hundreds of various landscape features, as well as orthorectified aerial imagery.
More generalized data from federal and international sources also exist. The datasets are acquired when they are requested
by NCSU faculty, staff, and students for project and research activities, or when they are easily obtainable. In 2000,
a grant from the NC Cooperative Extension Service enabled a large-scale data collection effort. Similarly, a three-year
partnership beginning in 2005 with the Library of Congress provided resources for local government data collection and archiving.
The datasets are cataloged in our GIS Lookup database, and are available from a networked data server available campus-wide.
For more information, see http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/gis.
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Geospatial (GIS) Data Collection
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The NCSU Libraries provides assistance in locating, selecting, and using
GIS data resources. The Libraries provides networked access to a wide variety of data resources and also makes available GIS software.
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The Library System
D.H. Hill Library in the heart of the university’s North Campus holds the vast majority of the
Libraries’ collections. The Special
Collections Research Center within D. H. Hill Library houses historical and unique materials
for instruction and research. The SCRC’s collections reflect particular strengths in engineering and
technology; architecture and design; the history of science; the textile industry in the southeastern United States; forestry;
and the history of North Carolina State University. The Harrye
B. Lyons Design Library supports the College of Design and has collection emphases in architecture, landscape architecture, graphic design,
industrial design, and art and design. The Natural Resources Library houses collections in support
of the College of Natural Resources and the Department of Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences. The Burlington Textiles
Library located in the College of Textiles complex on NCSU’s Centennial Campus supports the curriculum and research programs in
textile chemistry, textile materials and management, and fiber and polymer science. The William Rand Kenan, Jr. Library of Veterinary Medicine holds collections in support of research and curriculum for the College of Veterinary Medicine.
Ways to Give
There are many ways of giving to the NCSU Libraries. Each method can reflect a donor's particular interests and each has distinct tax advantages. A charitable gift may be outright (providing immediate support to the library), it may be deferred, or it may be a bequest. Please click here for more information.
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