The Amarillo Public Library was founded more than 100 years ago by a handful of women in the Just Us Girls (JUG) Club with 123 books. Today, the Amarillo Public Library System consists of a Central (Downtown) Library and four branches, serving well over two-thousand people every day. The library collection includes more than 800,000 books, magazines, and media materials which circulate over two million times per year. The Library maintains 83 public computers which supply more than 100,000 hours of internet access per year. Non-profit organizations from across the state take advantage of meeting facilities available for a small fee at all five library locations.

APL offers education and enrichment programs for all ages.  These include story times and early literacy activities for young children, creative, social and educational opportunities for teens; and enrichment programs for adults, including crafts, book discussion groups, English as a Second Language classes, and many others. 

The APL MakerSpace is located at the Downtown Library and offers cardholders access to a wide array of tools and supplies for sewing, quilting, jewelry making, leather working, fine art, and other crafts. 

The Amarillo Public Library System is a member of, and serves as the headquarters for the Harrington Library Consortium (HLC), the only multi-institutional cooperative library network in Texas, allowing public, school, academic and special libraries to share resources and provide additional services to patrons. HLC membership enables the Amarillo Public Library to increase the quality and quantity of resources available to the citizens of Amarillo and to serve as a leader in library innovations throughout the state of Texas.

The Amarillo Public Library has received the Achievement of Library Excellence Award from the Texas Municipal Library Director's Association (TMLDA) every year since 2015.  TMLDA is an affiliate of the Texas Municipal League which confers the awards each year based on excellence across a variety of categories.  This distinction is awarded to only 10 to 15% of Texas public libraries each year.