J. MURREY ATKINS LIBRARY
The library offers over 3.8 million volumes, including 1.2 million e-books, over 650 databases, and approximately 222,000 journals, the vast majority available electronically. Our annual collections budget is approximately $10 million. The library is a Federal and North Carolina Government Documents Depository and a registered patent and trademark resource center.
Ask Atkins
The Ask Atkins umbrella of services provides assistance to students, faculty, and staff at four service desks and via live chat, email, phone, and text. Students receive multiple library services at the Information and Research Desk. They can check out and return materials including books, laptops, DVDs, and other equipment, get information about the library and our resources, and get research help from librarians who can help with all stages of research assignments and the research process.
Hight Architecture Library
The Charles C. Hight Architecture Library is located on the second floor of Storrs Hall (Storrs 200). It is the only branch library at the University. The primary focus of the collection is 20th & 21st-century design, architects, and the built environment. The Library collection includes books, audiovisuals, periodicals, graduate thesis documents, drawings, and plans.
Area 49
Atkins’ technology hub, Area 49, is designed to encourage cross-disciplinary collaboration, experimentation, and exploration. The area features a MakerSpace, three EZ Video Studios, Gaming Lab, Multimedia Lab, Visualization Lab, Teaching + Technology Theater (T3), Photogrammetry Lab, and the Area 49 Desk, which lends current equipment for student use in classwork. These spaces provide students and researchers access to specialized equipment that enables Area 49 to serve as the catalyst for ideation, innovation, and entrepreneurial research and development.
Niner Commons
Niner Commons hosts and promotes the scholarly works of faculty and researchers from UNC Charlotte while providing valuable long-term preservation. The collection of materials in the repository provides a comprehensive record of efforts, partnerships, results, and products that advance individual and institutional goals. It provides access to the global community.
Digital Publishing Services
Atkins Library provides digital platforms for publishing ebooks, journals, online exhibits, and conference proceedings. All platforms are open access, meaning that published items can be accessed at no cost by anyone with an internet connection. In addition, we provide graphic design support, training on platform use and how to launch a new project, and copyright guidance.
GRANTS
We acquired two grants to support our Mobile Hotspot Lending program from the State Library of North Carolina that enabled the purchase of 94 additional mobile hotspots devices to loan to students. This pool of hotspots helps students for whom internet access is not available or reliable.
Black Student Experience Study (a Chancellor’s Diversity Grant): Atkins Library conducted the Black Student Experience Study to create space for Black students at UNC Charlotte to share their honest perspectives concerning their unique needs and experiences related to Atkins Library. As a result, we will implement improvements to the library’s spaces, services, and resources.
The Self-Care Collection at Atkins was generously funded with Higher Education Emergency Relief Funds provided by The Center for Counseling at Psychological Services (CAPS). It features a mix of books and devices allowing users to create calming physical environments, engage in meditation, and adopt new self-care strategies. Collection items include white noise machines, light and color therapy lamps, guided meditation machines, and books focusing on self-care activities, burnout, and mental
health topics.
Atkins received an Adapting Technology grant from the State Library of North Carolina totaling almost $40,000 to purchase equipment to support online learning, such as monitor extenders, webcams, noise-canceling headphones, iPads and Apple pencils and more. These technologies help to support student learning, particularly for individuals who are participating in online courses and/or are required to complete digital assignments.
SPECIAL COLLECTIONS AND UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES
Overview
We welcome students and researchers from the university and the wider community to explore our unique collections in the reading room on the 10th floor of Atkins Library.
Local and University History
Atkins Library preserves and shares the history of our region through collecting oral history interviews, the personal papers of our region’s notable individuals, the records of local organizations, local government documents, and the university’s own historically important records. With an emphasis on the twentieth century, these materials document aspects of our community with particular strengths in social justice movements, city planning, city government, and university governance. Comprising a range of formats including bound volumes, loose papers, audiovisual recordings, photographs, and maps, these materials are heavily relied on by researchers and students alike to understand our community’s past through encounters with original primary source materials.
Digital Collections
Some of our unique local history resources are in digital formats and available online on the Goldmine website. Highlights of our digital collections include documents related to city planning in the postwar era, many civil-rights related collections, oral history interviews on a range of topics, and photographs of stock car racing, early university history, and other Charlotte-related subjects.
Rare Books
Comprising approximately 12,900 volumes, the rare book collection contains books, broadsides, maps, and other printed material that are frequently used by students in a range of disciplines. Particular subject strengths include the history of our region; American and British literature; African American history; theology and religion; and children’s literature. The collection includes a substantial number of books from the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, many of which exemplify distinctive early printing, lithography, and binding techniques.