The building was designed by the Chicago firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, led by senior architect Walter Netsch.

University tour guides often remark on the resemblance between each element of the building's facade and the fore edge of a book.

Today, the "Reg" is the flagship institution of the University of Chicago Library system, which is considered among the top five in the world for breadth and depth of material,[citation needed] and receives high marks from users (The Princeton Review placed it in the top nine for college students).

The Joe and Rika Mansueto Library, designed by Chicago-based architect Helmut Jahn, consists of a glass-domed reading room, under which lies an automated storage and retrieval system stretching fifty feet underground.

It allows the library to maintain physical copies of materials available online while creating space within the book stacks to accommodate approximately 20 years of new print acquisitions.