Renovation update: NMBCC Library
Summer renovations are wrapping up for a phase one reopening
Pictured here, Asia Abang, project manager for Black Humanities in the Midwest (BHIM), greets students at the August 2026 Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center Open House. Inside the library behind her, a computer workroom will become a lab for BHIM when the library reopens this fall.
At the end of spring semester 2026, the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center Library temporarily closed for interior refurbishment work. Over the summer months, crews replaced carpet and painted walls, and now a fall phase-one reopening is planned.
When it opens again, the Library will welcome a new partner in the space: Black Humanities in the Midwest (BHIM), and offer a more flexible checkout policy for its books. Students and faculty will be welcomed back to the same community hub, ideal for both group and individual work, as well as culture center programming.
Many books housed at the NMBCC Library were moved into library general collections over the summer. Search the library catalog, IUCAT.iu.edu, to find these resources. Materials can be requested for delivery directly to faculty and graduate student offices, called to a circulation desk at the Wells Library, Education Library, Sciences Library, Business/SPEA Library, or the William and Gayle Cook Music Library; or found on library shelves. Other books will return to the space in a flexible lending library arrangement.
The phase-one reopening will allow a period of experimentation for students, faculty, and community to determine how the physical space can best be arranged to meet current user needs. New furniture for the space will be purchased with input from users and culture center staff, and then delivered in the coming months.
BHIM will open a lab inside the library, repurposing a room formerly dedicated to computer workstations. BHIM is a collaborative humanities initiative based at Indiana University supporting Black scholarship, art, and civic life across the Midwest region through three research labs, partnerships with community organizations, and a growing public archive of recovered work. It is supported by a grant from the Mellon Foundation.
A reopening celebration will take place in time for the popular Books N' Brunch event scheduled for October 10, 2026.
Questions about the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center renovation can be directed to Library Administration at libadmin@iu.edu.
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