The library of the CUPL is the earliest established university library in the materials and information of politics and law since the founding of the new China. It is the chief library of library collaboration committee of universities specialized in politics and law, one of the first member libraries of CALIS, the sponsor library of Beijing University Library Consortium.

With the expansion of education scale of the university, the library has also expanded into three sites in the two campuses of 20393 square meters in area. Of the three sites, the library in Xueyuan road campus for graduate students was built in 1987, the Fa Yuange(library) in Chang Ping district campus was built in 1991 and the Wen Yuange was built in 2007. Their distribution and different collections is compatible with the major setting and discipline positioning of the university, and realization of resources sharing.

In order to realize the goal of building the university into China's law education center, law research center, book materials and information center of law and national legislation and decision-making service center, the library sticks to implement the purpose of the library, which is to putting readers first, serving teachers and students of different levels of education in an all-round way, meeting the needs of teaching and scientific research. It strives to reflect the latest academic development both home and abroad, quickly pass relevant discipline information from inside and outside of the university.

The library will continue to explore purchase models of literature, expand channels and solicit opinions from different disciplines. Besides enriching variety the library also attaches great importance to the quality of collections. The total literature volume keeps on growing, and has passed 1.8 million, of which 1.55 million are paper literature (counted in August 2007). In addition to paper books, the library is also building digital library for the requirements of undergraduate teaching. Now it has 38 kinds of CDs, network databases, over 250 thousand kinds of E-books, over 19 thousand kinds of self-compiled electronic magazines in foreign languages, over 7 thousand kinds of electronic Chinese magazines.

The library always focuses on building its own features in collection. It ranks among the top in the country in terms of the total volume of literature in law and the speed of upgrading. Its collection by and large covers all the academic publications in law, textbooks, literatures published since the 1980s in China. Its collection of books in law published at the end of the Qing Dynasty is relatively complete, including codes, statutes, collection of cases, which is an outstanding feature of the library. Its books in English are mainly about politics and law, accounting for over 50% of the total, whose quality of version has won good comments from well-known scholars both home and abroad. The library ranks first in China in variety of its foreign language database. It also tops other university libraries in books of law literature published in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Through the development of over half a century, the library gradually formed a comprehensive collection system featured by law covering literature, history, philosophy, economy, management, law, politics, education, military, natural science and so on.

Relying on campus network, and backed up by ideal hard and soft ware systems the library constructs a full-fledged online information resources service system composed of network database, local database and self-built database and has realized automation of information management and service. Its distance visiting system can instantly accept visits of 500 concurrent users, convenient for teachers and students outside the campus to use its electronic resources.

The library deeply implements the concept of “ Putting teaching first ” and strives to provide quality service for teachers and students. There are 12 reference rooms, 3 electronic reading rooms with 2088 seats. The library provides open-shelf service. Borrowed books from the library can be returned at any location of it, which guarantees 91 reading-room opening hours weekly, 84 hours for borrowing and returning, and 112 opening hours for self-study rooms. The network resources are on service round the clock. Besides these, distance visiting service, integrate and introduce network resources are provided for subject-oriented services, training and propagation activities.

From 2002, the library has been one of the 38 members of Beijing University Library Consortium. Member libraries can borrow books from each other, which greatly enriches its resources. The library has also built book exchange relations with over 20 law schools and institutes of USA, Japan, Australia, Canada, Korea, Hong Kong, Macaw and Taiwan. An international platform of literature information resources has expanded resources available for teachers and students.

The Legal Information and Research compiled by the library is the magazine of University Library Consortium, and it was published in full by China Knowledge Resources Database.

In recent years, the book circulation, click rate of its Homepage and recourses has increased continuously; utilization ratio of its database of law is of the highest among universities in China.