capacity) in the state of Texas at the time, now surpassed by Cowboy Stadium.[19]
On the morning of September 28, 2010, 19-year-old Colton Tooley opened fire on campus with an AK-47 semi-automatic rifle, resulting in a lockdown of the university campus. He then walked into the Perry-Castañeda Library and committed suicide.[20]
On January 19, 2011, the university announced the creation of a 24-hour television network in partnership with ESPN, dubbed the Longhorn Network. ESPN will pay a $300 million guaranteed rights fee over 20 years to the university and to IMG College, UT Austin's multimedia rights partner. The network covers the university's intercollegiate athletics, music, cultural arts and academics programs. The channel first aired in September 2011.[21]
Campus[edit]
See also: List of University of Texas at Austin buildings
The University's property totals 1,438.5 acres (582.14 ha), comprising the 423.5 acres (171.38 ha) for the Main Campus in central Austin and other 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).
Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum
One of the University's most visible features is the Beaux-Arts Main Building, including a 307-foot (94 m) tower designed by Paul Philippe Cret.[22] Completed in 1937, the Main Building is in the middle of campus. The tower usually appears illuminated in white light in the evening but is lit orange for various special occasions, including athletic victories and academic accomplishments; it is conversely darkened for solemn occasions.[23] At the top of the tower is a carillon of 56 bells, the largest in Texas. Songs are played on weekdays by student carillonneurs, in addition to the usual pealing of Westminster Quarters every quarter hour between 6 am and 9 pm[24] In 1998, after the installation of security and safety measures, the observation deck reopened to the public indefinitely for weekend tours.[25]
The university's seven museums and seventeen libraries hold over nine million volumes, making it the seventh-largest academic library in the country.[26] The holdings of 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.[27] The newest museum, the 155,000-square-foot (14,400 m2) Blanton Museum of Art, is the largest university art museum in the United States and hosts approximately 17,000 works from Europe, the United States, and Latin America.[28][29]
The University of Texas has an extensive underground tunnel system that links all of the buildings on campus. Constructed in the 1930s under the supervision of creator Carl Eckhardt, then head of the physical plant, the tunnels have grown along with the university campus. They currently measure approximately six miles in total length.[30][31] The tunnel system is used for communications and utility service. It is closed to the public and is guarded by silent alarms. Since the late 1940s the university has generated its own electricity. Today its natural gas cogeneration plant ha
