[3] In 1897 Walter M. Kelly, Andrew Carnegie's business manager for Southern affairs joined the board of the YMLA and advocated for the construction of a public library because the YMLA could not serve Atlanta's growing population.

[3] It was in this building that 20 gay men were arrested following a police stakeout in September 1953, an event known as the Atlanta Public Library perversion case.

Using Works Progress Administration and city funds, the City of Atlanta and the Fulton County Board of Commissioners signed a contract in 1935 to provide library coverage throughout the county.

After opening its first branches for African Americans in the 1920's the APL began to employ black female librarians like Annie L.

Five 25,000-square-foot (2,300 m2) libraries will be built in Alpharetta, Milton, Northwest Atlanta, Wolf Creek, and Stewart-Lakewood.

In the original Library Facility Master Plan $34 million was allocated to fully restore and upgrade the site.

In the final referendum, however, $84 million was provided for the construction of a new 300,000-square-foot (28,000 m2) central library.

The building, designed in the brutalist architectural style, is considered a "masterpiece" by architectural experts, such as Barry Bergdoll, the Chief Architectural Curator of the Museum of Modern Art, and is closely related to the Whitney Museum of Art building (currently the Met Breuer museum).

[16] The Roswell Branch begun in 1946 when volunteers would make weekly trips to the Atlanta Central Library.

In 1955, Arthur W Smith purchased one of the historic "Bricks" apartments in Roswell and the collection was moved there and referred to as the Carnegie Library Deposit at Roswell because all of the books were still being borrowed from the Central Library.

The Cleveland Avenue Branch Library is the first ever Fulton County Government roof top solar installation facility.