The Godfrey Lowell Cabot Science Library opened its doors in 1973.
Named for for Godfrey Lowell Cabot (1861–1962), Class of 1882 — an industrial chemist, manufacturer of carbon black, aviation pioneer, and benefactor of the sciences — the library was conceived as a part of Harvard's Science Center, which also opened in 1973.
Under the stewardship of Dr. Alan E. Erickson, who served as librarian from the library's inception until his retirement at the end of 1991, Cabot rapidly became one of the busiest libraries on campus.
As library collections in the physical sciences and engineering have become increasingly electronic, and the needs of student study space have changed over the years, a number of departmental libraries have closed as service points and their collections have been integrated into the Cabot Science Library. That includes the Kummel Library for the Geological Sciences in 2005, the McKay/Blue Hill Engineering Library in 2016, the Physics Library in 2017, and the Chemistry and Chemical Biology Library in 2018.
Cabot underwent a significant renovation in 2016–2017, along with the Science Center's Cafe and Courtyard.