The college purchased the old Maryland Hall of Records building to be converted into a new library. Designed by Baltimore architect Lawrence Hall Fowler, the Georgian Revival style Hall of Records contained a core of seven stories housing the state archives and perimeter rooms that reflected different periods with architectural details based on Maryland history. The architect for the project was Travis Price, known for blending a post-modern style with historic preservation. Today the library has an inventory of more than 90,000 volumes. Books from the St. John's program in several editions and translations form the basis of the collection, with additional volumes serving as background to enrich the program readings.
Holdings are extensive in philosophy, literature, classics, and history of science.
There are class copies of books on the St. John's reading list as well as laboratory and mathematics manuals available for students to check out. A number of special collections are housed in the library. In 1832, some 800 books, maps, and globes of Lewis Neth, an Annapolis merchant and board member, were left to the library. One of St. John's literary societies, the Lyceum, donated another collection. Begun in 1831, the Lyceum library, according to one account, was more well-rounded than the larger college library.