Members of the Asheville Reading Club, including Anna C. Aston, Fannie Patton and Annie Chunn, began collecting books for a library in 1876.

In March 1894, the library moved to a new location at the corner of Church and Aston Streets; the collection contained 2,000 books and had a yearly subscription fee of $2.00.

Pack Memorial Library is also home to the Bookends Used Book Store, Lord Auditorium, and Buncombe County Special Collections (formerly known as the North Carolina Room).

It contains a special collection of photographs, manuscripts, postcards, architectural drawings, maps and other materials related to the history of Asheville, Buncombe County, and Western North Carolina.

Sondley bequeathed his large collection of North Caroliniana containing over 33,000 books, maps, pamphlets, Native American artifacts, gems, and birds' nests to the city of Asheville in 1943.