Hunt Named Top Research Library

The Hunt Library captured this year’s Stanford Prize for Innovation in Research Libraries, a new but prestigious award that recognizes the facility’s creative integration of powerful technologies and inspiring design.

Richard Luce, university librarian at the University of Oklahoma, praised the Hunt Library as “brilliantly conceived and implemented.” He served on a panel of judges that included librarians from Oxford, the University of Virginia, Bibliothèque Nationale de France and the Library of Congress.

With its colorful and comfortable study spaces, automated bookBot and state-of-the-art teaching and visualization labs, the Hunt Library is a model for other research libraries, Luce said.

“As libraries think deeply about and plan for the implications of the paradigm shifts we are experiencing, the Hunt Library can serve as exemplar, both in terms of cyber-infrastructure and associated services, as well as in facility planning,” he said.

The judges also awarded commendations of merit to Harvard Law Library’s LibraryCloud and StackLife and the National Institute for Informatics’ JAIRO Cloud.

Established last year by Stanford Libraries, the award showcases the programs, projects and services that benefit readers and users.

“One of the many reasons we decided to conduct this prize competition was to make it possible for really innovative libraries to get some much deserved attention to their most advanced work,” said Michael Keller, university librarian at Stanford.

Vice Provost Susan K. Nutter, director of libraries at NC State, said the university was honored to be recognized for its leadership in educational innovation.

“Our vision was to give NC State a signature library that would help us recruit the very best students and the very best faculty and to serve the community as an inspiring place of excellence and passion and ideas and vision,” she said.