The Historic New Orleans Collection's holdings are available to the general public in the Williams Research Center (WRC). The major research fields are colonial Louisiana, the Louisiana Purchase, the Battle of New Orleans, the Civil War, Mississippi River life, cartography, transportation, plantations, urban development, Louisiana artists and writers, architecture, the French Quarter, jazz and other forms of early New Orleans music, historic preservation, and Mardi Gras. The collections reflect aspects of the history and culture of the Gulf South, Louisiana, and New Orleans. Most materials are available to researchers in our Reading Room.

Through the assistance of the Center's experienced reading room staff, patrons have access to more than 30,000 library items, more than two miles of documents and manuscripts, a microfilm collection, and more than 500,000 photographs, prints, drawings, and paintings, as well as beautiful and unusual three-dimensional objects. Rare documents and manuscripts are available in microform and in the original.