Before any library officialy existed on the University of Nebraska campus, books were housed in the basement of University Hall. An account of the early organization of printed volumes at the University was recorded by Nellie Jane Compton, who wrote: “Dr. James H. Canfield, Chancellor of the University from 1891 – 1895, who later became librarian of Columbia University, brought Miss Mary L. Jones to the University in 1892. The library was then situated in two rooms occupying the entire ground floor in the north wing of University Hall. The books were arranged in wall shelving and a few alcoves around the walls of the two rooms."

The first University library was constructed between 1891 – 1895 and opened to students on the year of its completion (Manley 315). By 1926, due to tight budget constraints, University facilities were becoming too crowded to be utilized to their full potentials; this complication extended to the library as well. Due to extreme crowding, the University librarian noted that the Library did not have enough shelf space for its collection, writing, “We have been obliged to place some twenty thousand [library volumes] in storage, thereby making them immediately inaccessible...” (Nebraska Alumnus 423).

It was becoming apparent that although the University was gathering an increasing amount of enrolled students who would eventually require an expansion of University facilities, the University simply didn’t have the budget to do so. And so crowding at the University Library in terms of both books and students continued until the Don L. Love Memorial Library was opened for the use of faculty and students in October 1947. What was once the University Library now stands on campus as Architecture Hall.