Up until 1900, library materials had been housed in a number of locations.  In 1910, however, Andrew Carnegie made a donation of $40,000 to enable the University to provide a central home for the library.  In May 1911, after only 363 days of construction, the library building opened its doors to the public.  The library, now part of the Austin Peay building, contained nearly 40,000 volumes. But the new library quickly filled its shelves and outgrew its space.  By the late-1920s the University planned for a new and larger facility to replace the Carnegie building.  Because of the Depression the original design was cut back significantly, but the building contained a number of unique architectural features.  The building, designed by Knoxville architects Barber & McMurry, represented the "collegiate Gothic" style, an adaptation of the Gothic cathedral of the Middle Ages complete with pointed arches, vaulted ceilings, stone door frames, gabled roofs, spacious windows, and two small gargoyles guarding the main entrance.  Resembling a medieval fortress, the unique building looked little like other buildings on campus or any other building in Knoxville, but emulated the architecutre of the great ancient universities of England.

    The interior of the building also exhibited Gothic features.  On the second floor the ceilings are intricately painted with plaques honoring famous individuals from academic disciplines.  Some of those immortalized include Moses, Aristotle, Plato, Herodotus, Marco Polo, Issac Newton, Louis Pasteur, Beethoven, Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare.  The beams of the ceilings were painted with decorative motifs using scrolling, foliation, and heraldic devices.  The theme of the inscriptions was books and their influence. One beam over the stacks entrance quoted nineteenth century historian Thomas Carlyle saying:  "In book lies the soul of the whole past time."  The ceiling of the reference room also followed the development of the book covering Egyptian Hieroglyphics, Chinese scrolls, illuminated manuscripts from the Middle Ages, and early American books.  The central hub of the library was the reference room on the second floor of the building.  Patrons would study in this room, look up a book's call number in the card catalog, or obtain assistance from reference librarians.  The reference reading room was adjoined by the delivery hall, where patrons would request books from the closed stacks.

    The finished building, across from Ayers Hall at 1401 Cumberland Avenue, cost $300,000 and provided library staff with approximately 50,000 square feet, capacities for 200,000 volumes, and 500 seats for patrons.  Between 1932 and 1934 a tower was added to the original building to house the Eleanor Deane Swan Audigier collection of art objects and furniture which had been donated to the library.  But following the opening of the building, funding for new acquisitions decreased so significantly that no new books were purchased until 1935.  During the Depression and World War II years, the library grew slowly.  In 1950, the "Library Building" was named the James D. Hoskins Library.  Over the course of a fifty year career, Hoskins had served the University as faculty member, dean, and president.  Nine years later, the University built an addition to the library to provide for more book shelves, office space, and a Special Collections room.  As the library moved from a closed stacks to an open stacks approach, the interior design changed to a less elaborate style.  The new exteriors of the building also departed from the 1931 rendering of the structure and featured less ornate facades.  In 1966, the Estes Kefauver Wing opened on the west side of the building to house the University's growing Special Collections department and the papers of the late Senator Kefauver.  The Special Collections department also boasted manuscript collections, rare books, historical maps, and ephemera.

    By 1983, however, the Hoskins Library was unable to handle the needs of a new age.  The library's holdings had grown  to 1.6 million volumes, 3 million manuscripts, 70,000 microfilms, and over 17,000 periodicals.  The University decided to build a new library building on the site of the Hodges Undergraduate Library.  The Hodges Library opened in 1986, and the bulk of the library's holdings were transferred to the more modern building.  In the place of stacks, the Hoskins Library continued to function as the University's Special Collections Library and also became a research center.  The presidential papers projects of Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, and Andrew Johnson were headquartered in the building.  Several departments also relocated to Hoskins, including the Center for War and Society, the Freshman Engineering Advising Center, the Learning Research Center, and the UTK Map Library.  Although the building was never completed as first envisioned, the unique architectural features are evidence of a style not often seen on university campuses. Hoskins served as the main library for the University for over sixty years.  Today, the building serves as the home for the Special Collections Library, University Archives, the UTK Herbarium, the Map Library, and a number of important University offices.  The building is currently scheduled for renovation.