House Undergraduate Library
As early as 1960, library and university administrators began discussing the need for a library space devoted to the needs of undergraduate students. The Robert B. House Undergraduate Library opened in 1968, around the same time as the new Student Stores and Graham Student Union buildings. The three buildings, designed by the Charlotte architectural firm Cameron Associates, marked a major expansion of the campus and a new commitment to student services. The House Undergraduate Library has focused on the needs of undergraduate students, staying open later than the other campus libraries and offering or hosting support services, including a term paper clinic in the 1970s, one of the university's first computer labs in the 1980s, and, more recently, reserve readings, and spaces and equipment for design and media production.
The library is named for Robert B. House, who served as chancellor from 1945 to 1957. A Halifax County native who graduated from UNC in 1916, House spent the majority of his career at Carolina. He joined the administration in 1926 and was appointed dean of administration for the Chapel Hill campus in 1934, after the creation of the consolidated UNC System. In 1945 the name of his job changed and he became the first person at the university to hold the title of chancellor. House led Carolina through a period of dramatic change, first helping the university endure the Great Depression and then World War II, and then overseeing the subsequent rapid expansion of the campus and student body and the admission of the first African American students in the 1950s.
Date Established: 1964
Date Range: 1964 – Present