As with many towns across the United States, Waukegan was served by private subscription libraries for many decades before acquiring a public library. The first of these was the "Little Fort Reading Room and Library Association", housed in the courthouse and established in 1845. This was followed by the Young Men's Association Library in the 1860s, and finally by the Sesame Club in the 1890s, which sought to establish a free public library. After successfully operating a free library for two years, the Club appealed to the Waukegan city government for support, and in 1898 the Waukegan Public Library was formally created when the city took ownership of the Sesame Club's library. However, the library still lacked an actual building. This situation was not remedied until 1903, when the
Carnegie Foundation provided $25,000 to the city to support construction of a library building, in exchange for the city providing a building site and guarantee of annual support. In the 1950s, as Waukegan's expanding population began to exceed what the small Carnegie library could serve, the library began to operate
bookmobiles, the first coming into service in 1956 and the second in 1962. A major renovation in 1998 added some 16,000 square feet, while remaining faithful to the building's original esthetic. This made it nearly unique among municipal libraries in housing a college's main collection within its own. The college and library maintained numerous ties, including the painting of a mural on "the Art of the Story" on the library building in 2004. After Shimer left for Chicago in 2006, the basement space that had been used for the Shimer collection was repurposed. ==Services and holdings==