The beginning of library - year 1941. From year 1991 till 1 February 2003 library was under the authority of the Ministry of Welfare. Since 1st February 2003 the library was under the Ministry of Health.
Since 1st October 2004 library is a State Agency "Medical Library of Latvia" (MLL) under the Ministry of Health.
The purpose of library is to participate in realization of a policy of health care by providing library services and resources to medical professionals and students.
There are 8 branch libraries in different towns: Riga (Gailezers), Daugavpils, Jekabpils, Jelgava, Jurmala, Rezekne, Valmiera, Ventspils. 
The library receives legal deposit copy on health and environment protection, medical sciences and social care.

About 10 000 users borrow more than 350 000 copies a year. Library collection comprises more than 500 000 copies in all fields of health care and medical sciences - books, periodicals, author's summary of  dissertations, audio-visual materials, electronic databases.

Library is one of the builder of the union catalogue of 8 libraries and the union catalogue of academic and special libraries of Latvia.

The library has published 5 volumes of the retrospective medical bibliographic index "Scientific Medical Literature of Latvia" (1940 - 1986) and other bibliographies.

Library has a sister library in USA - the Coastal Area Health Education Center Health Sciences Library, Wilmington, North Carolina. 1999 -2003 MLL was a Sister Library to the  Medical Library Association of USA.

MLL is a member of
- the Association of Latvian Academic Libraries (LATABA),
- the European Association for Health Information and Libraries (EAHIL),
- the Baltic Association for Medical Libraries (BAML).