The University of Houston Libraries serves University of Houston (UH) students, faculty, staff and the scholarly community. The MD Anderson Library is the general collection library of the University of Houston. The UH Libraries includes three additional locations, all on the UH campus. Two other libraries, the Conrad N. Hilton Library and Archives and the John O'Quinn Law Library, are managed and maintained by their home colleges. Through a collaboration among libraries, students and faculty of the University of Houston–Clear Lake (UHCL), the University of Houston–Downtown (UHD), and the University of Houston–Victoria have the ability to check out circulating volumes.

The University of Houston is a public research university in Houston, Texas. It was established in 1927 as Houston Junior College, one of multiple junior college institutions formed in the first decades of the 20th century. In 1934, HJC was restructured as a four-year degree-granting institution and renamed as the University of Houston. Today, Houston is the fourth-largest university in Texas, awarding 11,156 degrees in 2023. It has a worldwide alumni base of nearly 200,000.