Supported by Staffordshire County Council,[1] it is a registered charity,[2] administered by an independent trust in conjunction with the Staffordshire & Stoke-on-Trent Archive Service,[1] which also operates the county archives from an adjacent building.

The core of the library is the large collection of printed books, pamphlets, manuscripts, drawings, watercolours, and transcripts built up by William Salt (1808–1863), a London banker.

[3][4] In 1918 moved to its present home in Eastgate Street, a Grade II* listed house completed in 1735.

[7] Colin Dexter undertook much of the research for his eighth Inspector Morse novel The Wench is Dead (published in 1989) at the library.

Dexter recalled that he spent "a good many fruitful hours in the library" consulting contemporary newspaper reports of the murder of Christina Collins, on which the novel was based.