[5] In 1901, then-Education Commissioner, Martin Grove Brumbaugh, initiated talks with Andrew Carnegie with the purpose of building a public library in San Juan,[4] as part of the United States' Puerto Rican education program.

Carnegie's private secretary, James Bertram, indicated that the amount usually donated was 10 times the promised maintenance expenses.

The then-Department of Public Instruction was authorized to organize and equip the Biblioteca Rodante, which offered it services through the use of cajas viajeras ("travelling boxes"), which were shelves used to carry books to isolated schools and communities.

The library received commendations from former-Governor Luis Muñoz Marín, who had recently started his vacation in Rome, writing "Humor is intelligent laughter.

"[4] The next year, a law was passed which permitted the Department of Education integrate the community by subdelegating the administration of the library to a governmental agency or NGO.

[2] In 2010, the San Juan municipal legislature approved an ordinance to accept the library building, possessions and land from the Department of Education, per a Legislative Assembly resolution.

[7] After which, then-San Juan mayor Jorge Santini commenced the "total disinterest of the municipality in preserving it" however "community efforts have been made to reopen it without success.

"[5] After the José Julián Acosta Theater Arts School, located a down the street, was declared "partially not apt for use" after the 2019–20 Puerto Rico earthquakes, then-mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz announced an agreement with the Department of Education to rehabilitate the library and transfer students temporarily, using 11 classrooms and a recreative area at the library and supplying the use of the Ateneo Puertorriqueño's theatre and the Teatro Tapia, equipment and breakfasts supplied by the municipality, while lunches were the Department's responsibility, as well as Wi-Fi and a radio with direct communication to the municipality's Emergency Management Office and establishing an identification card system for the 182 students and 31 faculty, amounting to a sum of $85,000 investment.