The MSU Libraries began as a single reading room on the third floor of College Hall, the first classroom building at the Michigan Agricultural College. In the school's early years, students and faculty spent most of the day in the classroom and the fields, so the library was open only a few hours in the late afternoon and early evening. Student assistants were the very first library employees.

In the 1970s, libraries began transforming their collections and operations to take advantage of newly developing technology. Card catalogs were automated; videos and software joined books on the shelves; telecommunications allowed libraries to share information quickly and easily. In 1989, the MSU Libraries' catalog went online, allowing users to perform searches in a few seconds that would have taken hours with the card catalog.

Since the early 1990s, the astonishing growth of the Internet has allowed libraries to dramatically expand the range of services and materials they can provide to patrons. The MSU Libraries are on the leading edge of this movement, providing a comprehensive collection of full-text electronic resources in every discipline, online services that speed materials to scholars, and facilities to create the best possible learning environment for every student.

This archive represents a compilation of the efforts and achievements that the MSU Libraries has made on behalf of the academic community at Michigan State University