New Orleans Public Library

The New Orleans Public Library (NOPL) is the public library service of the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, United States.

The system began in 1895 in the Fisk Free and Public Library in a building on Lafayette Square. 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. It eventually became known as the New Orleans Public Library.

On January 18, 1897, the library opened its doors to the public. At that time the collection comprised over 35,000 volumes. A significant portion of the collection was obtained from the Fisk Free and Public Library and the Public School Lyceum and Library. The first librarian was William Beer who concurrently worked as a librarian at another library in New Orleans: the Howard Memorial Library. Beer resigned from NOPL to focus on his work at the Howard Memorial Library in 1906. His successor was Henry Gill.

A turn-of-the-20th-century donation of $50,000 from businessman Simon Hernsheim allowed the library to begin building a significant collection. In 1902 the city received $250,000 from Andrew Carnegie to build a new main library and three branches. By 1908, the new main library was open at Lee Circle and branches were open at Royal Street & Frenchmen in the Faubourg Marigny neighborhood, on Pelican Avenue in Algiers, and on Napoleon Avenue near Magazine Street uptown.

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