University of Texas-Austin (McCombs) Austin, TX

Facilities

The university covers an area of 1,438.5 acres (582.1 ha), comprising the 423.5 acres (171.4 ha) for the main campus and other land for the J. J. Pickle Research Campus in north Austin and the other properties throughout Texas. The main campus has 150 buildings totalling over 18,000,000 square feet (1,700,000 m2). prominent structures includes the university's seven museums and seventeen libraries that hold over nine million volumes, making it the seventh-largest academic library in the country. The university's Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center include one of only 21 remaining complete copies of the Gutenberg Bible and the first permanent photograph, "View from the Window at Le Gras," taken by Nicéphore Niépce. Nevertheless, the university continues to expand its facilities on campus. In 2010, the university opened the state-of-the-art Norman Hackerman building housing chemistry and biology research and teaching laboratories. In the same year, the university broke ground on the $120 million Bill & Melinda Gates Computer Science Complex and Dell Computer Science Hall and the $51 million Belo Center for New Media, both of which are scheduled to open in 2012. Moreover, UT Austin operates several major auxiliary research centers. The world's third-largest telescope, the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, and three other large telescopes are part of UT's McDonald Observatory, located 450 miles (720 km) west of Austin. The university manages nearly 300 acres (1.2 km2) of biological field laboratories, including the Brackenridge Field Laboratory in Austin. The J.J. Pickle Research Campus (PRC) is home to the Texas Advanced Computing Center which operates the Ranger supercomputer, one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world, as well as the Microelectronics Research Center which houses micro- and nanoelectronics research and features a 15,000 square foot (1,400 m2) cleanroom for device fabrication.