Built in 1883, it was designed by American architect Henry Hobson Richardson[1] to resemble the Winn Library in Woburn, Massachusetts.

The library was donated to the University of Vermont by Frederick H. Billings, of Woodstock.

It has been a central part of campus life since opening in 1885,[1] and despite the University's growth over the intervening century, it has remained architecturally similar to its original appearance.

[1][2] The Billings Library was then converted to a student center in 1963.

[4] Thanks to an $11.4 million renovation completed in the summer of 2018, UVM's most architecturally significant building once again houses academic departments, including Special Collections, the Miller Center for Holocaust Studies, the Humanities Center, and the Center for Research on Vermont.