The Tulane Libraries Offsite Facility on its own is the third largest library in Louisiana in terms of collections size. In addition to Howard-Tilton Memorial Library collections, the facility also holds materials from The Latin American Library, Tulane University Special Collections, Newcomb Archive, Newcomb Art Museum, Turchin Business Library, and the Amistad Research Center. At least 780,000 overflow volumes from the Howard-Tilton Memorial Library general collection of books and journals are stored there as well as a similar number of manuscript folders and other archival collection items.
The facility is located about two miles from campus. Items there are available to library users via a courier retrieval service that operates each weekday.
The Tulane Offsite Library Facility was opened in 2003 and occupies most of a 70,000 square foot renovated warehouse at 900 Norman Francis Parkway that formerly served as a Coca-Cola distribution center. The space was first acquired through a lease, but the property is now owned by Tulane University. Materials there are housed on 90,144 linear feet of shelving that represents a mix of traditional ranges of shelving each separated by aisles and high-density, mobile shelving units designed to conserve floor space.
The facility is now staffed full-time by an Annex and Special Projects unit, as well as staff who work in the facility's Conservation Lab that has been set up to repair damaged physical items from the collections.
