It is a central service facility of the RheinMain University of Applied Sciences and provides literature for the population of the city and region.

Further locations were added in 1992 in Bleichstraße (today an extension to Bertramstraße) and in 2003 in the library on the Unter den Eichen campus.

In the course of German secularization from 1803, it was greatly expanded by considerable additions from monastery libraries.

In 1938, the regional association for the administrative district of Wiesbaden in the Prussian Province of Hesse-Nassau became the library's sponsor, which meant that the administrative business was effectively taken over by Nazi functionaries in the service of Provincial governor Wilhelm Traupel.

During the Second World War, the library relocated numerous valuable holdings (including the Wiesbaden Codex and the illuminated Scivias Codex of Hildegard of Bingen, both from the 12th century, as well as several medieval manuscripts from Schönau Abbey to Dresden (Girozentrale Sachsen) for security reasons.

The library of Herborn Academy, a stronghold of German Reformed Christianity, deserves special mention, as most of it came to Wiesbaden when the Hohe Schule was dissolved in 1817.