Originally established as the Camarines Sur Branch Library through a resolution of the Provincial Board of Camarines Sur on April 1921, it became one of the first eight libraries organized in the country. It was renamed in memory of the late Raul S. Roco, who was an exemplary student, a humanist lawyer, a consummate artist, a brilliant Constitutionalist, an accomplished lawmaker, a distinguished Senator, a reformist education secretary, an outstanding public servant, and a foremost Bikolano.