Qualla: State Library of North Carolina

State Library of North Carolina: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In 1812, the North Carolina General Assembly assigned the Secretary of State a new task: collect and safeguard books and documents for the use of government officials. The collection sat in offices and corridors for decades, growing slowly, opened to the public only as a courtesy in 1845. Today that quiet 1812 mandate has become two buildings, more than three million newspaper pages on microfilm, ninety thousand digitized photographs, and a separate facility on Capital Boulevard devoted entirely to readers who can no longer hold a printed book. The State Library of North Carolina is what happens when a single sentence in a 19th-century statute is followed seriously for more than two centuries.

State Library of North Carolina: Among the Marble Buildings

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The main library stands on East Jones Street, neighbor to the State Legislative Building, a short walk from the North Carolina Museum of History and the Museum of Natural Sciences. The clustering is no accident. North Carolina's cultural and governmental institutions occupy a sma...

State Library of North Carolina: The Microfilm Vault

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Among librarians, the North Carolina newspaper microfilm collection is the kind of resource people travel to use. Over three million pages drawn from nearly every one of the state's 100 counties — some titles dating to 1751, before the United States existed. The papers are closed...

State Library of North Carolina: Reading by Other Means

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In 1958, the North Carolina Commission for the Blind asked the State Library to take on a new role: providing books to readers who could not see them. The Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped now operates from 1841 Capital Boulevard with large print, braille, and audi...

State Library of North Carolina: From Statute to Search Bar

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The 1987 legislature established the State Publications Clearinghouse so that every state agency report, study, and bulletin would find its way into 22 depository libraries scattered across North Carolina. The Clearinghouse now collects digital publications too, and the North Car...

State Library of North Carolina: Where Libraries Become Libraries

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The State Library certifies North Carolina's public librarians, sets the standards their profession must meet, and channels federal Library Services and Technology Act grants — $4.4 million in 2006-2007 alone — to academic, public, school, and special libraries across the state. ...