Hunter Library, completed in 1953, was the product of a $2 million building fund provided by the North Carolina General Assembly in 1949. Built upon a former football field, it was enlarged in 1967 and more than tripled in size in 1983. For fifty years Hunter has been a depository for federal documents and remains the largest library in North Carolina west of Charlotte. It is named after Hiram Tyram Hunter, who was President of Western Carolina Teachers College, a forerunner of Western Carolina University. (1)

• History: Completed in 1953; extended in 1967 and 1983
• Dimensions: 3 floors and 2 mezzanines; 154, 886 sq. ft.
• Seating Capacity: 700
• Volumes of Books, Serial Backfiles, & Other Paper Materials: 702,000
• Number of E-Books: 23,000
• Number of Microform Units: 1,513,000
• Audiovisual Materials Units: 14,000
• Number of Current Serial Subscriptions: 3,330
• Library Instruction Presentations per year: 315
• Students Served: 6,540
• Library Web Page Use per year: 495,000 access hits
• Reference Transactions per year: 20,000
• Circulation Transactions per year: General: 102,000; Reserve: 31,000
• Total Library Operating Expenditures: $4,000,000
• InterLibrary Loans to Other Libraries per year: 16,000
• InterLibrary Loans Received From Other Libraries per year: 11,000
• Public Service Hours in a Typical Week: 110
• Gate Count in a Typical Week: 10,000
• Total Staff: 45

(1) Curtis W. Wood and H. Tyler Blethen, A Mountain Heritage: The Illustrated History of Western Carolina University (Western Carolina University, 1989): 131-132, 139, 146, 152, 153, 185, 200.