New Orleans Public Library

The system began in 1895 in the Fisk Free and Public Library in a building on Lafayette Square.

[1] Abijah Fisk was a merchant who, over fifty years earlier, had left his house—at the corner of Iberville and Bourbon Streets—to the city for use as a library.

Subsequent donations had resulted in libraries and collections not completely free and open to the citizenry.

An 1896 city ordinance proposed by Mayor John Fitzpatrick combined the Fisk collection with a newer municipal library.

[1] Beer resigned from NOPL to focus on his work at the Howard Memorial Library in 1906.

[1] A turn-of-the-20th-century donation of $50,000 from businessman Simon Hernsheim allowed the library to begin building a significant collection.

By 1908, the new main library was open at Lee Circle and branches were open at Royal Street and Frenchmen in the Faubourg Marigny neighborhood, on Pelican Avenue in Algiers, and on Napoleon Avenue near Magazine Street uptown.

By 2005, NOPL had a dozen branches in addition to a newer (1960) main library on Loyola Avenue.

The 19 remaining staff members, when they were able to re-enter the city, began surveying damage and salvaging assets.

[5] Library administrators began looking for outside sources of funds to begin hiring additional staff.

From 1915 to 1965 there was a Central City branch at Dryades & Philip Street, originally the main "Colored" library during the era of racial segregation.

[25] In 1871 City Ordinance 1035 AS established a keeper of the City Archives whose duties included allowing "no book, paper or archives of any kind to be taken thence, except upon the order of the Mayor, with due receipt being taken therefor showing description of the article so temporarily withdrawn."

In 1946 documents were transferred from City Hall to the Howard Annex of the New Orleans Public Library.In 1961 they were moved to the newly built main library.