Hindu College bequeathed to Presidency College its assets and staff, and its excellent Library. In 1855, the Hindu College Library had around 7000 books, which grew by 1955 to about 75,000 books. The library, a fundamental part of the institution, was initially housed in the Main Building in what is today the Arts Library. The Science library opened in the newly built Baker Laboratories in 1913. C W Peake, who taught Mathematics (1895-7, 1899-1900) and Physics (1906-18), and was briefly Principal (1911), was the prime mover behind the new wing of the Library. The Science Library was named after him, although Peake Science Library is a name that is all but forgotten today. In the second half of the twentieth century, the holdings of the Arts Library were carefully curated and developed by the Professor-in-Charge of the Library, Taraknath Sen. He had able successors among his pupils: Arun Kumar Dasgupta and Sukanta Chaudhuri. The University Library was thus for long made up of three units – the Arts Library, the Science Library and the Departmental Libraries.

But it was in the year 2000 that the library got a building as its own, presently known as the Central Library building. The Annual Report of 2001 records the event, mentioning that the library building, decked with floral alpanas, was inaugurated at 12 pm on the 18^th of December, 2000 by the Minister of Higher Education, Professor Satyasadhan Chakrabarty who unveiled this plaque, and lit the inaugural lamp. An exhibition of rare books and manuscripts was arranged for the occasion. This exhibition was inaugurated by the chief guest, Mr Kshiti Goswami. The cultural programme that followed took place in the Derozio Hall, which was chaired by Dr. Pratapchandra Chandra and arranged under the wing of Dr Manotosh Dasgupta.

The Central Library brought about significant change in the preservation of books, offering ambient lighting and scope and space for preservation of rare documents. The Science Library, which had for a while been located in the first floor of the Derozio building, was moved in July 2008; in 2016, the libraries of the Departments of Economics and Political Science moved here. The building also offers an e-classroom and a lecture hall, a collection of rare and valuable books and documents, and is home to an institutional repository, which collects University publications in print and digital form.

This plaque, unveiled by Professor Satyasadhan Chakrabarty, is located at the entrance of the Central Library building. The inscription on it reads as follows: