The New Orleans Public Library does not measure its success solely by the number of books lent for home use. This photograph of the reading room in the Lee Circle library captures a typical day of in-house use of the Library.
New Orleans Public Library is much more than a provider of books for patrons to take
away to read at home. It is also a source for information on a seemingly infinite range of topics,
from religion to science, from art to zoology. Every branch in the NOPL system has its own
collection of general reference books such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, directories, and the like.
The larger branches, and, to an even greater extent, the subject divisions at the Main Library, also
provide access to many specialized reference volumes and sets. Indeed, the Louisiana Division is
entirely a reference collection; all of its millions of items are always available for use in the
Library.
But reference books are only a part of the story, for a trained and experienced reference staff is
essential to the efficient flow of accurate information from the Library to its patrons. Over the
years NOPL staff members have developed collections, indexes, fact finders, and other tools--not to
mention institutional memories--all of which are designed to facilitate their ability to answer
reference questions. We are now beginning to use the largely uncharted but immensely powerful
Internet to supplement our in-house resources and talent.
Typical users of reference facilities are business men
checking financial manuals and directories, printers, artists, architects securing pictures, data
and illustrations, salesmen planning campaigns, obtaining suggestions for window displays,
Carnival organizations planning balls, floats, costumes, authors and journalists verifying facts,
seeking historical information, advertisers planning radio programs, lawyers obtaining records or
materials for legal use, exporters consulting cable codes and government publications on tariffs,
commerce and many subjects. These represent only a few types of users; of course there are
many high school and college students as well as many club men and women using reference
facilities to help solve their individual problems, some of which are: collecting debate material,
arranging a club program, preparing a speech, obtaining information on current events, writing
term papers, etc. [Annual Report, 1937, p 10]
The Royal branch service desk, shown here ca. 1913; the librarians
are presiding over a full
house of reference users.
In an attempt to offset the loss in circulation of
technical books--those for the mechanic, the ship-fitter, the welder--which was noted throughout
the system, "a technology alcove" was set up in the large circular end of the Reference Room.
Here on one side were placed reference titles, on the other those for circulation, so that any
specific call might be conveniently met through the use of both collections.... This Public
Library, like those in industrial areas throughout the country, has helped teach many a new trade
to many a worker, and war-time emphasis on technical books has served the long-time purpose
of bringing up to date what was formerly the weakest single feature of our book collection.
[Annual Report, 1943, p. 13]
Youthful Library users at the Canal branch service desk,
March, 1939.
To many Orleanians, the Main Library is still associated
only with the loan of books. However, each year more of our fellow citizens are learning that
the Information Desk is a source of assistance with problems of many kinds. [Annual Report,
1943, p. 12]
A patron of the old Main Library at Lee Circle ponders a
difficult reference problem.
The international nature of New Orleans and the
growing number of multilingual citizens in the city, prompted a search for special funds to
increase the foreign language collection. With a grant of $450.00 from the Friends of the New
Orleans Public Library and $1731.00 from the Hernsheim Fund, the library collection in foreign
languages was augmented to 15,000 volumes. Works by outstanding contemporary and classical
authors in fiction, social science, and poetry were purchased. Although major areas of purchase
included works in French, German, and Spanish, books in Greek, Italian, Polish, Hebrew, Serb,
and the Scandinavian tongues were also added. [Annual Report, 1968, p. 2]
Reference and other library services are described briefly in
this informational brochure from the 1940s. [Herbert S. Livaudais Donation, in memory of
Samuel H. Livaudais, Sr.]
Jericho, a project to break the barriers of service to the
Spanish-speaking, the Black community, and the elderly, was funded by a grant from the U.S.
Department of Health, Education and Welfare, of Library Services and Construction Act Funds,
administered by the Louisiana State Library.... At the New Orleans Public Library, a Foreign
Language Division was established, complete with bilingual personnel, with the vast majority of
books, periodicals, and newspapers in Spanish. [Annual Report, 1972, p. 3]
This very simple service brochure, probably from the late
1940s, describes several of the services and collections available to New Orleanians at the
Public Library.
Three Departments of the Main Library were moved the
first part of 1963 in order to help us give better service to the public.... The Louisiana
Department was moved to the third floor and made a closed reference department. Research
work may now be done in the quiet atmosphere necessary for concentration. The Art and Music
Department was moved to the second floor where its collections are now accessible to people
who come to see the many displays of art and related subjects on the bridge. The Fiction
Department was moved to the main floor with the result that many patrons do not have to use
either the elevator or the stairs during their visits to the Library. Our public is enthusiastic about
the changes. [Annual Report, 1963]
In the early 1950s, the Library used this map to direct patrons
to the various service points in the Lee Circle building.
The Martha Gasquet Westfeldt Art Collection, donated
by Mrs. Westfeldt, brought Library patrons Oriental ceramics dating back to 200 B.C., a related
collection of art reference books, and a fund to inaugurate a long-awaited service--a circulating
collection of framed art reproductions. The sixty-nine prints purchased during the year were in
constant demand, with long reserve lists for many of the pictures. [Annual Report,
1952]
Reference service
at NOPL and other libraries around the world was revolutionized by the introduction of
microforms. Microfiche cards such as the one shown in this photograph provide inexpensive
access to vast storehouses of reference material that many library systems would never be able to
acquire in the original.
It was obvious that during 1957 your Library's long-time role
as the community's education-information headquarters for all ages was filling an
increasingly urgent need, to an ever widening number of New Orleanians. Fact was replacing
fiction, in a world of Sputniks, and Library demands reflected the sharply changing emphasis--both
qualitatively and quantitatively. [Annual Report, 1957]
The Art and Music Division, ca. 1959, before its relocation to
the Library's second floor.
An important trend is the increased demand for
information relating to specific problems of business, commerce, economics, industry. Each
year, many more people are turning to the Library for assistance with their daily work--whether
petroleum or potatoes. They represent the largest corporation and the smallest part-time project,
and they find that the Library s collection of trade journals, government documents, indexes to
manufacturing, and directories are indispensable assets. They also demonstrate the need for a
strong central department of business and technology with library materials and staff selected to
serve the economic interests of Orleanians. [Annual Report, 1954]
In 1974 a consortium of sixteen libraries in the New Orleans
area received $155,610 in federal money to fund a reference and referral service for the region.
Known as SEALLINC (Southeast Louisiana Library Network Cooperative), the system's referral
center was housed at NOPL's Central Library where a separate staff (shown here in a typically
frenzied pose) processed requests from member libraries and routed books and other reference
material to the appropriate end users.
In general, it was decided that the Adult Department--which
had carried a heavy burden of reference, reader's advisory, and circulation work with
great success for many years--should be divided into several service units with more specialized
objectives. At the same time, it was also felt that the fine City Archives Department provided a
splendid nucleus for a department containing all reference materials about both New Orleans
and Louisiana, and that the records of the La Hache Music Library and the framed prints of the
Westfeldt Art Library, both housed at the Milton H. Latter Library, would serve more efficiently
if they were supplemented by books and made an integral part of the new Main Library. There
was also, of course, the compelling need for establishing a special department for Business and
Science--an objective of many years, and one becoming more pressing each year, not only from
commercial interests but also from the tremendous emphasis in high school and college
curricula and adult education courses. [Annual Report, 1958-1959, p. 2]
Service desks
at branch libraries served both circulation and reference needs. Shown here are the desks at the
Gentilly and Napoleon branches.
In compliance with an act of the Louisiana Legislature, all
books in German have been withdrawn from every department. [Annual Report, 1916-1919, p.
11]
One of the best sources for up-to-date information on a
multitude of reference subjects has always been the Library's periodical collection. This
photograph shows students using the old periodical desk on Central Library's first floor
sometime prior to the establishment of the present-day Periodicals, Arts and Recreation
Division.
... it is pleasing to note the increasing use of reference
materials in our library. Unlike the New York Public Library our reference rooms are not
overcrowded by the under-graduate students and our reference work is largely with the general
reader. [Annual Report, 1926, p. 13]
Over the years, New Orleans Public Library staff has answered
reference questions for thousands of out-of-town researchers through the mails. The writer of
this 1965 letter, Gordon Hendricks, later wrote a full-length biography of Eakins as well as
works on Winslow Homer and Eadweard Muybridge, "father of the motion picture." NOPL still
provides such service to researchers, especially in the Louisiana Division. Most of the searching
done today, however, is based on a fee schedule approved by the Library Board of Directors.
If the success of an institution is to be measured by the
service it gives and the number it serves--and surely service to the people of the city must be the
real aim and purpose of a public library--then the past year was the most satisfactory and the
most successful in the history of the New Orleans Public Library.... In ever-increasing numbers,
people in all walks of life, used the Reference Department to find information on business
problems, for genealogical research, in the preparation of speeches, radio talks, advertising, ball
costumes, etc., and for studies in schools and universities. [Annual Report, 1931, p. 7]
A capacity crowd of readers makes use of the general
reference collection on the first floor of the Central Library.
The United States Library for the Blind has been
established in the New Orleans Public Library. The credit for this outstanding achievement is
due to Dr. Herbert Putnam, Librarian of Congress. The New Orleans Public Library has now
thousands of volumes in Moon and Braille Types, as well as disks for the Talking Book, which
we are circulating to the blind who reside within the territory half way between New Orleans and
Atlanta, Cincinnati, St. Louis and Dallas. [Annual Report, 1932-1934, p. 11]
Reference service
to the local business community has long been a priority at New Orleans Public Library. Here
Ellen Tilger, former head of the Business and Science Division, is shown providing one-on-one
assistance to a library patron.
A file of the organizations in New Orleans has been
compiled containing the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of the officers of the
organization. Information is kept up-to-date. This file proved the source of many telephone
questions. The Community Chest found it helpful in planning its campaign for 1940. The
Young Men's Business Club used it in preparation for the Spring Fiesta and many other
organizations and individuals have made use of it. [Annual Report, 1939, p. 15]
The cover from the first edition of the Louisiana Division's guide to its genealogical holdings.
The initial printing of this pamphlet was sold out by 1986 when a second edition was prepared
and published by the Friends of the New Orleans Public Library. A new edition in presently
undergoing final revision and should be available by the end of this year.
Types of patrons may be summarized as follows:
Visitors to city for directions and local facts, newspaper writers (mainly telephone calls), ladies
from study groups and cultural clubs, book reviewers, users of mechanical and trade handbooks,
and research workers on the Federal Writers Project. [Annual Report, 1940, p. 12]
The old
Information and Reference desk at the Central Library served patrons well until the demands of
the computer age made it obsolete.
Work on the two indexing projects, "Louisiana
biography and portraits", and "Selected articles in New Orleans and Louisiana magazines" were
continued throughout the year, and a new venture started, namely the indexing and assigning of
subject headings to the Southern Historical Society publications, American Historical
Association reports, and the Louisiana Planter. Routine work and typing on these projects are
done by W.P.A. assistants. [Annual Report, 1940, p. 12]
The Foreign Language Division provided specialized reference
services to the city's Latin American population for more than twenty years.
The Haspel Doll Collection, installed June 9, attracted
numerous persons. This group of 500 dolls from practically every nation is perhaps the finest in
the South. Its value to students of geography and costume has been outstanding. Through the
generosity of the Haspel family the dolls are to be kept in the Library permanently, or until either
of the contracting parties desires a change of plans. [Annual Report, 1941, p. 7]
This Times-Picayune article describes NOPL reference services at the beginning of the
1980s.
Early in the year the Library received governmental
designation as an Official War Information Center. This Center was shortly thereafter
recognized by the local Office of Civilian Defense and began a cooperative program designed to
give New Orleans a clearing house for official information on a national and local scale.
[Annual Report, 1942, p. 7]
New Orleans Public Library provided on-site reference services to the mass of media
representatives covering the 1988 Republican National Convention in the Crescent City. A
similar NOPL reference desk served visiting reporters at the National Football League's
Superbowl in 1990.
Information and book service to patrons have been the
dual objectives of the Adult Department staff, and every major issue and problem in the world or
community has had its effect on their daily task. To those thousands of Orleanians who have
asked "Where can we get the answer?"--the Library has answered "Here," and in person, by
telephone, and by letter the questions have come in greater quantity and variety than ever before.
[Annual Report, 1943, p. 13]
"Consumer
Connections" was designed to serve as a quick source for referrals to providers of essential
services to the community.
In an attempt to offset the loss in circulation of
technical books--those for the mechanic, the ship-fitter, the welder--which was noted throughout
the system, "a technology alcove" was set up in the large circular end of the Reference Room.
[Annual Report, 1943, p. 13]
The Artists Information Bureau operated out of the New
Orleans Public Library's Community Relations Office from 1975 to 1980. The Bureau's
services included "a reference bank of community artists, professional service and counseling
for persons in the arts, educational programs in the arts, slide shows, seminars and workshops
geared to the needs of the individual artist in the New Orleans area." In 1980, however, the AIB
fell victim to city budget cuts. The City Archives holds a complete set of Arts Information,
the
AIB's monthly publication full of news about the contemporary art scene in New Orleans during
the late 1970s.
The total number of informational requests filled by
telephone, personal contact, and correspondence was 44,041--a highly specialized service
requiring a staff trained in professional library techniques and familiar with the potentialities of
the book collection. [Annual Report, 1944, p. 9]
In addition to its role of providing books and information to
local libraries for the use of their patrons, SEALLINC also provided instruction to area librarians
to make them better suppliers of reference services.
Cox Cable New Orleans through the Arts &
Entertainment Network, donated to the library "The A&E Library Theatre." The donation
consists of a 20" TV monitor, a videocassette recorder, a collection of six A&E program
cassettes varying from classic dramas to historical documentaries, comedy, performing arts and
five companion books. [Annual Report, 1990, p. 4]
The "Businessman's Bookshelf" was one of many
tools used by the Business and Science Division to advertise its services to the New Orleans
business community.
The inability of our City Council to provide the money
needed for the enlargement of the reference room was a great disappointment to us. For two
years the further development of this department has been impossible on account of the
smallness of the room. Students who are repeatedly turned away because there are no seats for
them soon become discouraged and do not return to the library. [Annual Report, 1911, p.
8]
New Orleans Public Library entered the realm of online
database reference assistance with its Lagniappe service in the early 1980s.
We have expended much time and energy in the effort
to complete [the United States document] collection and fill in all gaps. We have met with
considerable success in this undertaking and I believe we now have a more complete collection
of United States Government documents than any other library south of Washington. [Annual
report, 1911, p. 11]
Reference librarians in the Information and Reference Division answering both in-house and
telephone reference questions.
April 1996 marks the first anniversary of NUTRIAS, New Orleans Public Library's most recent
venture into the world of online reference service. NUTRIAS (New Orleans' User friendly
Technologically correct Research and Information Access System) is our site on the Internet's
World Wide Web. We have NUTRIAS in New Orleans while many other parts of the world are
still dependent on gophers to provide Internet access to information resources. Here is a print
out of the NUTRIAS home page as it appears to users of the Netscape Navigator 2.0 web
browser.