Origins of the New Orleans Public Library date back to 1843 with a single French Quarter house containing a few volumes. Through the bequest of Abijah Fisk, his book collection and home on the corner of Iberville and Bourbon are left to the City of New Orleans for use as a public library. The collection moves to Uptown to the Mechanics Institute, but is destroyed by a fire in 1854. Tulane University (then called University of Louisiana) purchases the building in 1881 and assumes responsibility for the remaining collection. In 1896 Tulane's Fisk Collection merges with the City Library (The Lyceum Library) to form one consolidated library system for the City of New Orleans. The Fisk Free and Public Library opens in 1897 in St. Patrick's Hall on Lafayette Square in the recently vacated Criminal District Court Building.

Additional funding from the Simon Hernsheim donation and Andrew Carnegie enable the newly renamed New Orleans Public Library to expand in the early 1900s. The Carnegie Main Library opened on Lee Circle in 1907, and additional branch libraries opened throughout the city soon after. Still in operation today are the original Carnegie branch library in Algiers Point, the Children's Resource Center on Napoleon Avenue, and the Nix Branch on Carrollton. The Main Library moved from Lee Circle to its current location at 219 Loyola Ave when its new building was completed in 1958. The New Orleans Public Library now operates a system of 15 locations serving the residents of New Orleans.

A more in-depth look at the history of the New Orleans Public Library is availabe on the library's website.