In 1972, Institut Teknologi Kebangsaan was established and the Library became the Library of Institute Teknologi Kebangsaan. The Library first started with a collection of 15,000 titles of books and 80 journal titles. The initial collection consisted of 15,000 titles and 80 periodicals inherited from Maktab Teknik. In April 1976, The Institute was upgraded and known as Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. The Library building was renovated and space area was extended to 20,449 sq. feet.
The Library area was extended to 23,781 sq feet by taking over the Finance Office which had moved to its new building. Seating capacity was only for 300 readers only. In April 1983, the new 4 story Library building was completed with an area of 965,650 sq feet it was able to accommodate 1,000 readers.

In May 1985, some of the Library collection, particularly in the fields of Architecture, were moved to the branch Library in Skudai. This is the initial phase of moving the collection to the newly built main Library in UTM Skudai. By December 1988, most of the Library collections are relocated at the Main Library and the Library in UTM Kuala Lumpur Campus became the branch Library. To date, the Library is servicing some 5,000 users comprising of mostly Diploma students

The number of collections in UTMKL is approximately 96000 of printed and non-printed related with engineering, technology, and social science field. Currently, the library is servicing users mainly from Postgraduate from a variety of school in UMTKL comprising of Perdana School, International Business School, Razak School,  MJIIT and few of the undergraduate students including UTM Space. There are also two libraries branches in UTMKL located at Razak Tower Building and MJIIT building. The two library branches specialized on the core business of each faculty.