The library was founded in 1691 by Duke Wilhelm Ernst and has been one of the most famous libraries in Germany since the 18th century.

The Duchess Anna Amalia Library is a research center for European cultural and literary history. It preserves literary documents from the 9th to the 21st century as sources of cultural history and research, indexes them according to formal and content-related aspects and makes them available for use.

The library's holdings include a total of 1 million items. As its profile is most strongly influenced by the educational concept of the period around 1800 and its collections from the period 1750 to 1850 are particularly dense, the epoch from the Enlightenment to the late Romantic period is the library's main focus.

The museum's collection includes a unique collection of Bibles. At the heart of this collection is a magnificent Luther Bible from 1534, as well as Heinrich Kohlhans' family register bound in light pigskin with autographs by Martin Luther and Nikolaus von Amsdorf, among others. 

In September 2004, shortly before the long-planned renovation was due to begin, the two upper floors of the building were completely destroyed by a smouldering fire in the roof truss area. The damaged historic library building with its famous rococo hall has been open to visitors again since December 2007. However, 50,000 works have been irretrievably destroyed by the accident.

The historic library building with its famous rococo hall is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site "Classical Weimar", which is a unique testimony to the cultural epoch of Weimar Classicism and reflects Weimar's outstanding role as an intellectual center in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.