[6] However, within a month it became evident that the Grand Salon would not be large enough to house this burgeoning collection, and the library was moved to the hotel's former main dining room at the northwest section of the building, into what is now known as Fletcher Lounge in Plant Hall.

[7] It remained there until the summer of 1969, when student volunteers and library staff moved the books from Fletcher Lounge to the newly constructed building named after Merl C. Kelce, a St. Louis industrialist and benefactor of the University of Tampa.

Having fallen short of its goal, additional funding was sought and obtained in the amount of $427,661 through a federal construction grant under the Higher Education Facilities Act of 1965.

[12] In May 1968 Merl C. Kelce, chairman of the board of Peabody Coal Company of St. Louis and recipient of the 1961 Horatio Alger Award, donated an additional $250,000 to the Tampa Library Fund to cover the final expenditures.

Under the direction of the President of the University of Tampa, Ronald L. Vaughn (1995–2024) a fundraising campaign called "Take UT to the Top" began in 1999.

In order to create more space within the library for its escalating student population, most of the older print periodicals and microfilm are stored in an off-site storage facility.

"[25] Contrary to its name, it "contains works that reflect military as well as semi-military topics (e.g., peace, medicine, fiction) in geographic areas other than Florida.

"[26] Originally, there were classrooms housed in the room located on the North end of the first floor, and the local public television station would periodically broadcast from there.

The library also curates the University of Tampa's Institutional Repository, which is "a digital service that collects, preserves, and distributes the intellectual output of the UT community.

It has made a commitment to retain and make accessible to both the university community and to the general public at no fee selective resources of the United States government.