About LSU Libraries

The LSU Libraries supports the university’s academic mission by fostering teaching, learning, and research. Through its commitment to excellence in collections, services, and spaces, the Libraries serves as an indispensable intellectual resource for Louisiana and communities worldwide. 

View our Strategic Plan.

LSU Library is the main library. Centrally located on the quad, it is an active and energetic part of academic life at LSU. It is the only twenty-four-hour study location on campus, offering resources and services to faculty and students in all departments. Subject specialists are available to students and faculty for personalized research consultations, copyright support, and help navigating our world-class collections and resources. The library facilities include individual and group study areas, a graduate reading room, a math lab, the Shell Tutorial Center, computers, wireless access, and a coffee shop. Additionally, LSU Libraries administers equipment checkouts for students and interlibrary borrowing services. Hundreds of thousands of books and journals are also available online through the library website, including textbooks for many LSU courses.  

The Special Collections division in Hill Memorial Library provides access to historical, cultural, and artistic treasures and research materials in fields ranging from the humanities and social sciences to the natural sciences, agriculture, aquaculture, the fine arts, and design. Special Collections includes the Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections (LLMVC), the Rare Book Collection, and the E.A. McIlhenny Natural History Collection, in addition to more than a dozen smaller specialized collections. The LLMVC contains rare and early imprints pertaining to the exploration and colonization of the region; books on Louisiana subjects and Louisiana authors from all eras; Louisiana newspapers on microfilm; the papers of Louisiana political figures; and more than 5,000 manuscript collections. Special strengths in other collections include natural history, especially ornithology and botany; 18th-century British literature and history; and modern fine printing and book arts. Special Collections has contributed more than 50 collections of primary source materials to the Louisiana Digital Library and more than 200,000 pages of historical Louisiana newspapers to Chronicling America, both of which are freely available to the public.