In 1887, George Grey donated around 8,000 books, doubling the existing collection, and a new building was erected for the library on the corner of Wellesley and Coburg (now Kitchener) streets.

When Manukau City Council was formed by the amalgamation of Manukau County and Manurewa Borough in 1965, it took over responsibility for a small subscription library at Māngere East and volunteer-run community libraries in Alfriston, Beachlands, Clevedon, Kawakawa Bay, Maraetai, Orere Point, and Weymouth.

The library system also gives access to three specialised eBook suppliers: Overdrive, BorrowBox (run by Bolinda Audio), and Wheelers.

The library system also provides a number of free events: Wriggle and Rhyme: Active Movement for Early Learning for babies; storytime for toddlers; book clubs for teens and adults; guest speakers and author talks; movie nights; school-holiday programmes, and computer classes.

[15] The South Auckland Research Centre, based at Manukau City Centre, specialises in the history of the southern and eastern parts of Auckland city (Howick, Manukau, Manurewa-Papakura and Franklin wards), but also has strong general reference, family history, Māori and New Zealand collections.

The heritage collections include a wide range of books and periodicals, newspapers, photographs, maps, oral history recordings, ephemera, and manuscripts and archives.

Further south, Pukekohe Library also holds substantial heritage collections of books, photographs, periodicals and newspapers relating to the Franklin area.

South Auckland Research Centre staff work closely with local historical societies and museums in the area which have heritage collections.

[16] The West Auckland Research Centre moved into the former Waitākere Central Library Reference Room in April 2013.

The collection contains material on Maori and the archaeology of the Waitākere Ranges and the brick, pottery and timber industries.

[18] Significant holdings include items of documentary heritage that are part of the UNESCO Memory of the World, New Zealand register, which currently include: Other items of note include the first work printed in New Zealand: Ko te katihama III (pictured), printed in 1830 by William Yate who worked for the Church Missionary Society;[27] the manuscript of Robin Hyde's unpublished autobiography and of Baron de Thierry's Historical narrative of an attempt to form a settlement in New Zealand; a certified copy written in Māori of the Treaty of Waitangi, and documents concerning the building of the Stone Store at Kerikeri, New Zealand's oldest surviving stone building.

Archival collections that have been deposited include the personal papers of Jane Mander, as well as the records of Mercury Theatre and the Auckland branch of Greenpeace Aotearoa New Zealand.

On his retirement in 1974, Clifton Firth gave Auckland Libraries much of his surviving work, including many display prints as well as more than 100 000 photographic negatives.

[26] Notable international rare books include a copy of Shakespeare's First Folio (1623), Spenser's The Faerie Queene (1590); an edition of William Blake's Europe a Prophecy and America a Prophecy bound together, and Alexander Shaw's A catalogue of the different specimens of cloth collected in the three voyages of Captain Cook (known as "the tapa-cloth book").

It includes 500 first editions in French and English, 2,000 sheets of original manuscripts, and 51 typescript volumes of translations, letters and bibliographies.