The BSJ's history reflects its complex mission. The current BSJ houses what used to be two separate collections: the general BSJ collection and that of the Centre de documentation pédagogique (CDP) or pedagogical resource centre. The BSJ has existed since 1969 under the care of the FSJ's first librarian, Father Georges Durocher, whereas the CDP was created in 1977. Both institutions united on April first 1993, which witnesses to the library's willingness to serve its education students and all those who work in French educational programs in the province of Alberta and elsewhere (DeLongchamp). The BSJ received the responsibility also to be selective depositary of French language Government of Canada documents in 1982. Furthermore, the library has taken on a preservation and archival task of French-Canadian documents. In 1984, the BSJ acquired the entire microfilmed series of two Edmonton newspapers, La Survivance and Le Franco Albertain, as well as two Quebec dailies, Le Devoir and La Presse. By 1997 the BSJ had acquired the entire collection of Western French-Canadian newspapers, as well as the databases where they are indexed. In 1985, the Saint-Jean Foundation, gave the BSJ $27 200 to organize and preserve its special collections, which contained at the time 32 019 documents. The Research Institute's Alberta Heritage collection and the archives of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate came to enrich the BSJ's special collections in 1986 and 1987 to 1990 respectively. The Oblates' fonds is on loan to the library for a period of twenty-five years. The cataloguing of part of the special collections started in 1998.

Another trend at the BSJ is collaboration in information access and sharing. The first example of cooperation is the BSJ's integration to the University of Alberta Library's network on September 12 1983. Nine years later, the library signed a reciprocal privileged accessibility agreement with the ABCDEF Association⁷ , a consortium of francophone university and college libraries, and the Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI). In 1995 and 2001, the BSJ developed a complete collection of the National Film Board's videos thanks to the contributions of the FSJ and the Maurice-Lavallée School. Finally, the library entered The Alberta Library consortium of libraries across Alberta in 1999 and partnered in 2000 with Le Carrefour, Edmonton's French bookstore, for sales on consignment to FSJ faculty.

The new BSJ, which officially opened its doors on January 17 1997, consists of two physically separate sections: the general collection and the pedagogical and youth literature section. These sections are organized respectively in the Library of Congress cataloguing and classification scheme and the Dewey Decimal classification system. All of the FSJ's general educational and research subjects find their place in the general collection. They comprise fine arts and humanities, educational sciences, social sciences, and natural sciences. Reference resources, official federal government documents, microforms, oversize documents, and current periodicals are not interfiled, but all other material types, including audio-visuals, are. Past Western Canadian francophone newspaper issues and all the documents on Quebec education from 1981 to 1997 are also available in the general collection on microform (University "Au sujet"). Since 1998, the BSJ develops a basic French and English business administration collection for its unique bilingual undergraduate commerce degree program. Finally, the Durocher room holds the special collections consisting in an historical collection: the Oblates of Mary-Immaculate fonds and the Research Institute fonds.