The building is named after the influential evangelical minister Dr. Clarence E. Macartney who grew up in Fern Cliffe House when the college moved to Beaver Falls in 1880.

The McCartney Library's mission is to provide the students, faculty, and friends of Geneva College with the information service, books, journals, pamphlets, microforms, electronic data, audio-visual media, and instructional presentation materials needed to educate and minister to a diverse Christian learning community.

Deal (three sisters from Clarence E. Macartney's congregation) donated the funds for the construction of a college library in honor of their pastor.

The largest of the Library's collections, it consists of books on numerous subjects that users may check out for a loan period of 21 days.

The Buhl Reference Center also houses several computers designated for screening the Library's online databases and CD-ROM collection.

The Geneva Author collection is composed of works written by College faculty, staff, alumni, and students.

The collection is showcased in the “Geneva Author Shelf,” founded by the Helen Patterson Hill Library Endowment.

The microform collection, located in the Periodicals area on the ground floor, contains microfiche, microfilm, microcards, and ultramicrofiche.

The collection features recordings, audiocassettes, videocassettes, DVDs, slides, computer software, CD-ROM multimedia products, and audio-visual kits.

Included in the collection are works about Covenanter theology and history, the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, and some of the denomination's individual congregations.

The Collection is composed primarily of the personal library and papers of Clarence Edward Noble Macartney, a prominent American preacher and church leader during the first half of the twentieth century.

The books in the collection reflect Dr. Macartney's interests in preaching, public speaking, religion, and U.S. Civil War history.