The University Library was established at the same time as the university in 1665. When it was founded, its initial holdings consisted of the hand-written and printed documents of the Augustinian Canon Community in Bordesholm, which was disbanded around 1566. The library received these documents through a decree issued by the Duke of Gottorf, Christian Albrecht, and they are still the library's oldest holdings. In the first hundred years of its existence, the library grew slowly (it had approximately 6,000 volumes in 1768). With around 40,000 volumes at the end of the eighteenth century, however, it was one of Germany's most important libraries.

In 1884, the university received the first building that was to serve library purposes only (the old university library, Brunswiker Str. 2). An annex was added to the building in 1907, but it was destroyed by bombs on 29 April 1942. Half of the book collection, which had grown to more than 500,000 volumes before World War II, was destroyed.

After the war, the university (except for the clinic at Schloßgarten) was transferred to the grounds on Olshausenstraße. The University Library was given a new building there in 1966. The Medical Department remained in the old university library. The new building at the intersection of Westring and Olshausenstraße quickly proved to be too small, which is why the university needed to establish an additional branch for the Department of Natural Sciences on Heinrich-Hecht-Platz in 1987. In the new building on Leibnizstraße, which opened in April 2001, the natural sciences collections could be reunited with the other collections. In 2015, the University Library celebrated its 350th anniversary together with the University. Since 2016, the University Library has been responsible for the Specialized Information Service (FID) for Northern Europe as part of the German Research Foundation's nationwide funding program for specialized information services for science. This replaced the special collection area for Scandinavia, which had been managed in Kiel since 1948.
With the founding of the Kiel University Press in 2019, whose editorial office is located at the University Library, the library provided an important impetus for open science. The publishing house is guided by the university's open access guidelines and systematically promotes the expansion of freely accessible scientific publication channels. In 2025, the University Library was also involved in the founding of the Kiel Emergency Network and initiated the state-wide platform SchriftGut.SH to further strengthen the protection of cultural heritage and professional exchange in Schleswig-Holstein. Its historical holdings, which date back to the 16th century, are now part of a context of digital offerings, open publication services, and future-oriented information literacy training. In this way, the Kiel University Library positions itself as a dynamic partner of the university and the state of Schleswig-Holstein.

In recent years, Kiel University Library has undergone extensive renovation work, further strengthening its profile as a modern place of learning and work. Today, it offers a wide range of services that are consistently geared toward the needs of students, teaching, and research.