[2] Its collection of materials started on December 5, 1775, after the Pennsylvania General Assembly asked Benjamin Franklin to obtain a copy of Statutes at Large and reference maps.

[7] During most of the 1870s, the library “focused primarily on obtaining materials pertinent to legislative business", resulting in a collection that was not diverse.

As part of his term, Egle emphasized the importance of expanding the library's newspaper collection to include one or two papers from every county depending on their population size.

[12] During his term, Egle warned of unsafe conditions in the library such as fire hazards and poor insulation of electrical wires.

[13] After forming a close relationship with the governor, Egle and a team of forty men were able to move more than 100,000 books to a new library building in December 1894.

[15] The materials that had been moved to the new building were saved, but some vital historical and legislative documents that remained in the capital had been burned before they had been copied.