The University library on St. Thomas, founded in 1962, moved to its present building and was dedicated in honor of former Governor Ralph M. Paiewonsky on March 16, 1969.

The library is designed primarily to support the academic programs of the University. Collections consist of more than 80,500 bound volumes, 590,000 microforms and over 20,000 other items including maps, pictures and pamphlets. The library currently subscribes to 690 periodicals, and has older issues for an additional 300 titles to which the library no longer subscribes or which are no longer published. In 1973, the library became a selective U.S. Government Depository, and now has a collection of over 15,000 paper documents and CD-ROMs published by the U.S. Government.

The library serves University students, faculty, and staff. Adult permanent residents from the community may also use the library, and may borrow materials by applying for a community borrower's card and paying a refundable deposit.

Special collections include the following:

• Caribbean Collection - Materials pertaining to the civilization, history and literature of the area.
  
• Melchior Center for Recent History - Books, papers, pictures and other material about the recent history of the Virgin Islands. Some of these materials have been scanned onto computer files.
  
• Caspar Holstein Collection - Books on African and African-American culture and history.
  
• Charles William Taussig Memorial Collection - Books on African-American and Caribbean culture.
  
• ERIC Documents - Educational documents on microfiche.