[4] The Ohio General Assembly granted a charter to the Young Men's Association of Toledo for a "lyceum and public library.

On November 3, 1873, the Toledo Public Library opened for its first day of operation on the second floor of the King Block, a commercial building on the northeast corner of Madison Avenue and Summit Street.

[7] In 1890, Edward O. Fallis designed a new main library to be built on the corner of Madison and Ontario in early Norman and Byzantine style.

[6] An annex to the main library building saw construction begin in September of 1914, with the grand opening on October 21, 1915.

He was succeeded in 1937 by Russell Schunk, on whose watch the current Toledo Lucas County Main Library was built.

The building was designed by the architectural firm of Hahn and Hayes and opened on September 5, 1940, as a Public Works Administration project.

On February 18, 1998, plans for the renovation and expansion were presented to the public, with the official ground-breaking taking place on March 8, 1998.

During the project the library was able to stay open, with some temporary modifications to service points, except for the time it took to move the print and audio materials and furnishings to their new locations.

Opened in fall 2016, King Road is the newest Library branch and was built to serve the growing Sylvania and Holland communities.

To better serve the community, a new modern 21st century Mott Branch at Smith Park was built directly across the street of its previous location.

[18] The renovations moved the café; expanded the children's library; and added a gift shop, recording studio, and teaching and community spaces.

The library also has many databases available for the public to use such as Ancestry, Consumer Reports, Gale Legal Forms, Medline, and many more.

The Robert L. and Posy Huebner Collection includes more than 200 works of original art by illustrators of children's literature.

Other artwork at the Main Library and the branches include Reeds, a glass sculpture by Dale Chihuly; three paintings by Edmund Osthaus;[24] murals of vitrolite in the historic court and Children's Library; and a large mural by Wil Clay, Catch the Magic: Read, at the Mott Branch.

Named for Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur's mother, this room won the John Sessions Memorial Award from the American Library Association in 2014.

The library has The Blade Rare Book Room & Vault featuring rare and valuable items such as a letter from Thomas Jefferson dated 1800 and first editions of the original Nancy Drew series, written by local newspaper columnist and author, Mildred Wirt Benson.