Dhaka University Library started as a part of the Dhaka University on the 1st of July, 1921.

Dhaka University Library began with 18,000 books inherited from the libraries of the former Dhaka College and Dhaka Law College. F.C. Turner, the former principal of Dhaka College was the first librarian of the Dhaka University Library and Fakhruddin Ahmed succeeded him in the post in 1922. At present the Dhaka University Library has 5,500,000 books and magazines. Besides that the Library has 30,000 rare manuscript and a large number of Tracts (booklets, leaflets, pamphlets, and puthis) have been procured in microfilmed copies. Some rare books and documents have also been collected in microfilm form. In the same way, rare books and reports, puthis, Bengali Tracts and private collection of Buchanan on Bengal have been acquired from the British museum.

Dhaka University Library Buildings:

• Library Administration Building: Administration branch, Book collection, Book binding, Old Magazines and United Nations publications collections branch manuscript department, Seminar branch.
• Central Library Building: Rare book department, Reference department, Periodical department, Daily magazine, Computer room, Current journal, books and magazines of Arts faculty, Social science faculty, Commerce faculty and Law faculty also can be found here.
• Science Library Building: Science related books, magazine, reference materials, journals and periodicals could be found here.

Dhaka University Library Services:

The library offers all services, including reading room, photocopy, readers' guidance. General text books can be borrowed for home reading by faculty members for a stipulated period. Students of the faculties and departments located in the main campus (known as the Arts campus) can borrow books for home reading from the Seminar section only. They are offered a full reading room use service for other holdings (books, journals,periodicals etc.). They all have access to photocopy services.

The current catalogue is maintained in card format and can be approached by author, title and subject. There are also an historical 'sheaf catalogue' for older materials.