Massachusetts Agricultural College housed its first library in a room in the first South College building. When this building burned and the collection was destroyed in 1885, the faculty, students, and alumni donated their own books and journals to re-establish a collection and move into the newly constructed chapel/library. In 1883 an Alumni Library Committee had been established to raise funds for the construction of a "Stone Chapel", which was built in 1884-1885. Now "Old Chapel", it was the first campus building designed for use as a library (first floor). Subsequently, main library facilities moved from Old Chapel to Goodell Library (1935) to the "tower library" (1973), which was named the W.E.B. Du Bois Library in 1996.  Over the years the number of branch libraries in the library system has waxed and waned.

Henry Hill Goodell was the first official Librarian (1885-1899). He was succeeded by Ella Frances Hall (1899-1908), Charles R. Green (1908-1921), Henry S. Green (1921-1924), Basil Boise Wood (1924-1952), and Hugh Montgomery (1952-1966). David Clay held the title, Director of Libraries (1966-1972); Merle Boylan, Jr. held the title of University Librarian & Director (1972-1973). The title of Director of Libraries was held by Richard Talbot (1973-1996), Margaret L. Crist (1997-2003), and most recently by Gerald Schafer (Jan. 2004- ).

The collection consists of reports, meetings minutes, budget  and planning documents, correspondence, policies and procedures, staffing records, photographs, news clippings & releases, catalogs, bibliographies and special events information. The Director/ Librarian's records (1924-1975) are comprised of accession lists (1963-1967), alphabetical and subject files. (1924-1974), correspondence (1954-1967) and other material. In other series detailed information can be found for the tower library design and construction  (1966-1973), dedication (1973), naming (1996), brick problem (1977-1986), and Mass Transformation & Class Act (1986-1987). Also included in the papers is a significant amount of information on Hampshire Inter-Library Center (HILC) and 5 College Cooperation.

This collection is organized into eleven major series; Publications (1888, 1910- ), Director Librarian (1900- ), Collection Development (1885- ), Public Services (1876-) Technical Services (1870- ), Library Buildings (1869- ), Committees (1883-1886, 1954- ), Hampshire Inter-Library Center (HILC) and 4/5 college cooperation (1951- ), Friends of the Library (FOL) (1956- ), Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials (SALALM) (1956-1975) and Boston Library Consortium (1975- ).