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The organizational meeting for establishing library service in Decatur was held in January 1925 in the home of Mr. and Mrs. W.J. Sayward. Approximately $1,000 was collected and subscribed for establishing the library.

The Decatur Public Library was founded on February 6, 1925. The library was housed on the second floor of the Decatur Bank & Trust Company building (where the current Wachovia building stands today). Five hundred books were donated and family membership cards issued for $1 each. The first library was open three hours each evening, staffed by volunteer teachers. Mrs. Sam Cartledge headed up the library on a part-time basis.

The new Decatur City Hall was constructed in 1927 with space designed for the library on the second floor. Mrs. Maud M. Burrus became the first full-time library director in 1930. Her salary was $75 per month.

DeKalb County began making a contribution to Decatur's library in 1930. Mrs. Burrus began taking books in the back of her car to readers in the small villages and farms of DeKalb County. The first bookmobile service in Georgia began with makeshift bookmobiles in 1934. The first "real" bookmobile was funded a few years later by the Works Progress Administration. Miss Louise Trotti, who later succeeded Mrs. Burrus as director, supervised bookmobile services.

The City of Decatur and DeKalb County signed a contract for continuing support of the Decatur Public Library and for construction of a new building. Land was donated by Mrs. Annie Scott Cooper as a memorial to her father, George Washington Scott, founder of Agnes Scott College and her husband, Thomas L. Cooper. The City of Decatur deeded one-half interest in the lot to DeKalb County, thus forming the first Georgia library to be jointly owned by a city and a county. The new library building at 215 Sycamore Street was dedicated in January 1950.

The original building quickly became too small; so an addition was built in 1954 to house an auditorium, and the Fine Arts and Cataloging departments. The Library was renamed the Decatur-DeKalb Library. The Fine Arts Department provided films, film strips, recordings, framed art prints and special film showing for children.

Miss Trotti succeeded Mrs. Burrus as Director in 1962. On February 23, 1965, the name of the Decatur-DeKalb Library was officially changed to the Maud M. Burrus Library in appreciation of her many years of faithful service.

After the formation of regional library system in 1951, books for all branches were centrally purchased, cataloged and processed at Decatur. The Extension Department which supervised branches and operated the bookmobiles also operated out of Decatur. In 1967, the Headquarters Building was constructed on Kensington Road and the cataloging, processing and extension functions were moved there. This made room for more books on the second floor. A director's office was part of the Headquarters Building, but Miss Trotti never used it, preferring to remain close to her "friends" (Decatur patrons and staff) in her small office off the main floor stacks.

In the 1960s and early 1970s, the Maud Burrus Library kept track of circulating books by means of notched and numbered T-cards (transaction cards). Books were checked-out by photographing the T-card and borrower's card. The T-cards were removed from returned books and sorted by repeatedly inserting needles into a stack of cards and shaking the cards so those with notches fell out. Because of the needles, the narrow room where this was done was called the knitting room. In 1973, the notched T-cards were replaced by punched cards which could be read by computer. The overdues staff at the Maud Burrus Library became the Patron Services Department and handled overdue notices for the entire library system. The Patron Services Department moved to the Headquarters Building in 1982.

The 1986, bond issue made available approximately $6 million for a much needed renovation and expansion of the Decatur building. After asbestos was discovered in the building, the building was closed from April 12 to August 15, 1988. While the library was closed, staff provided limited reference service from the "Library Information Annex" (a trailer in the parking lot). In 1989, the library was moved to temporary quarters on the Square so demolition and construction could begin. The Audio Visual Department was moved to a rented store front at Memorial Drive and Covington Highway, across the street from the site where the Covington Library was to be built.

The renovation/expansion added 37,640 square feet to the remaining 15,550 square feet of the original building (it was mostly the 1954 addition that was demolished). The library was renamed the Decatur Library and reopened on August 23, 1992. The fourth floor of the addition is the Maud M. Burrus Administrative Office.

In 1993, the CD-ROM LAN, providing reference databases, was established in the second floor reference area.