It is situated on the north side of the Bardeen Quad on the engineering campus along Springfield Avenue.

[2] This project was made possible by William Wallace Grainger, a University of Illinois electrical engineering graduate, class of 1919.

The Grainger Engineering Library was dedicated on the 59th anniversary of the University of Illinois Foundation, October 14, 1994.

The proceedings, entitled a "Gateway to a New Era", established the largest engineering library in the country, with over 92,000 square feet (8,500 m2) holding more than 300,000 volumes.

President Stanley Ikenberry, Chancellor Michael Aiken, and David Grainger, representing his father, William Wallace Grainger, pressed assigned areas on a computer touch screen to change a computerized red ribbon into a visual explosion of fireworks.

The fourth floor contains the Center for Academic Resources in Engineering (CARE), which has tutors and exam study sessions for students to use.

The west area contains more collaboration tables and is surrounded with group study rooms which students can reserve online in advance.

[7] In fact, it was so technically advanced that the furniture had to be custom designed because no one had ever had data and power connected to every seat on this scale before.

[8] With more than 1.5 million people using the building in 2000, it is currently the second most visited study area on campus, second only to the Illini Union.

An additional $11 million of State and gift funds was expended on the project for the rerouting of steam, electrical, and telecommunications lines, the demolition of several buildings, and the construction of the new Engineering Quad (which had been under consideration since at least 1926).

The contractors were also required to control the surface water in order to minimize damage to the project and adjacent buildings.

They needed to provide and operate hydraulic equipment of adequate capacity to control the surface water.

Even so, due to the number of request from faculties and students coming in from the north side, a second entrance was built.