The People's Library (Finnish: Turun kansankirjasto) was established in 1862, and it operated at the beginning in the house of a factory owner's wife.

However, the People's Library was soon in financial troubles, and it was even temporarily closed for a short period at the beginning of the 1870s.

The situation eased when the local businessman and patron Fredric von Rettig donated a new library building for the city.

In addition to the building, von Rettig also donated 10 000 books, an art collection, and a considerable sum of money for the maintenance of the libraries.

The architect of the new library building was Fredric von Rettig's own son-in-law Karl August Wrede.

The building was designed in the style of Dutch late Renaissance, and the immediate model for it was the House of Nobility in Stockholm.

[5] During the 1910s American ideas about the development of public libraries started to take root also in Turku.

Einar Holmberg, who worked as a librarian in the Turku City Library, brought new and radical ideas with him from his travels in England and the United States.

Children had had their own reading room already in the premises of the People's Library, but it soon proved inadequate and too small.

Already in the beginning of the 1970s the music department was moved to the former residence of the provincial governor by Läntinen Rantakatu.

In 1990 the library's four different reading rooms for newspapers and magazines were combined and located under same roof in the Julin House by Eerikinkatu.

Due to lack of space also the children's department had to be relocated in 1991 to the Hjelt House at the Old Great Square where it operated until 2007.

[8][11] Beginning from the early 1980s the library had tried to find a feasible solution to the lack of space.

The design competition for the new library building was won by JKMM Architects, and the construction was completed in 2007.