In 48 years of service, he oversaw the growth of the Duke University Library (originally Trinity College) from a single room in 1898 to millions of books and documents in modern facilities at his retirement in 1946.

[5] Breedlove was appointed by Trinity College president John Carlisle Kilgo as the full-time librarian in September 1898.

[6][7] The library at that time consisted of some 11,000 volumes donated by faculty and literary societies, housed in a single room in the Washington Duke Building.

[5] He "worked hard to raise the library's profile and importance on campus"[10] and, as the collection grew, he labored to manage the flood of donations and purchases amid staff shortages.

[11] Breedlove was able to supplement his team of part-time student assistants with the hiring in 1914 of a full-time professional cataloger, Eva Earnshaw Malone, former librarian at Meredith College.

[14][15] Opening in 1927, it held the entire collection until the completion of the General Library in 1930 (renamed for William R. Perkins in 1966) on the new West Campus.

[5][19] Notable former members of his library staff included Benjamin E. Powell, William Porter Kellam, Mortimer Taube, and Lawrence Quincy Mumford.

After he died at his home in 1955, a funeral service was held at the Duke University Chapel, followed by burial in Durham's Maplewood Cemetery.

[9] After his death, two notable publications summarized his career: Duke University Library Notes wrote, Mr. Breedlove had an opportunity that comes to few men; he was among the pioneers of his profession and thus saw the work to which he had early devoted himself expand and flourish in a degree that was spectacular and unexpected.