When the University of Western Australia began teaching students in 1913 and the first building was constructed at the Irwin Street site, just £2000 was set aside to purchase roughly one hundred books.

[2] A purpose-built building for the Wigmore Music Library was opened in 1976, including discussion rooms and areas for informal study.

Technological improvements became even more significant in the 1980s as Arthur Ellis, Jolley's successor as University Librarian, worked to expand the collections of audio-visual and electronic materials and began the process of computerising the library's catalogues.

The EDFAA Library sustained significant flood damage during the 2010 Western Australian storms, which ruined nearly 12,000 items in the collection.

At the time of its official opening in April 2002 by Sir Ronald Wilson, it was recognised as the largest medical and dental collection in Western Australia.

Special Collections houses many rare materials including the papers of Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville which contain more than 2,000 pages of correspondence and documents relating to the East India Company and Indian trade in the later 18th century, and an original 1650 map of the southern ocean, Polus Antarcticus by Dutch cartographer Jan Jansson.