Many of the library branches hold special book collections like Spanish language, LGBT Resources, and African-American history.

The Story Center on the 3rd floor is a studio with equipment for storytelling in all its forms: recording a podcast, making movies, or digital creation.

[17] The Fiber Arts Workroom on the 4th floor offers equipment to help people of all skill levels bring their ideas into finished projects.

[18] The Heritage Lab on the 8th floor contains digitization tools to make copies of irreplaceable photos, home movies, documents, slides and audio cassettes.

She helped raise US$11,000 from gifts from public school teachers, local businessmen, and Alfred Horatio Belo of The Dallas Morning News.

On October 22, 1901,[24] the Carnegie library opened at the corner of Harwood and Commerce streets with a head librarian, three assistants, and 9,852 volumes.

Four more branches opened in the 1930s including the Paul Lawrence Dunbar Library, which was the first to serve the African American population of Dallas.

In 1962, Lillian M. Bradshaw was named Library Director, the first woman to head a department in the City of Dallas, marking a milestone in the civil rights and women's liberation movements of that era.

[26] Days after she was put into office, she faced a censorship push from a Dallas council-member, but the community and media rallied to her defense.

The City Council, in response, overwhelmingly approved her appointment and passed a resolution not to censor books purchased by the library.

[28] (This was partly a result of the federal Library Services and Construction Act, which had enabled the addition of an unexpected number of volumes to the collection in a relatively short period of time.)