State Library of South Australia
The State Library of South Australia, or SLSA, formerly known as the Public Library of South Australia, located on North Terrace, Adelaide, is the official library of the Australian state of South Australia. It is the largest public research library in the state, with a collection focus on South Australian information, being the repository of all printed and audiovisual material published in the state, as required by legal deposit legislation. SLSA's holdings include rare books, maps, manuscripts, and ephemera. It holds the "South Australiana" collection, which documents South Australia from pre-European settlement to the present day, as well as general reference material in a wide range of formats, including digital, film, sound and video recordings, photographs, and microfiche.
, the director of the library is Megan Berghuis, who was appointed in 2024, after the retirement of Geoff Strempel.
The library collection was based on a number of forerunning societies and subscription libraries, until the South Australian Institute was incorporated in 1855, and a new building opened in 1861 to house the Institute's collection of books. The Institute Building opened in 1861. The Institute became a statutory body named the Public Library, Museum and Art Gallery in 1884, the year that the first purpose-built library building opened – now the Mortlock Chamber, designed by colonial architect E. J. Woods. In 1967 the Bastyan Wing was opened behind the Institute building, and finally in 2003, the glass-foyered Spence Wing, which connected the Bastyan Wing to the Mortlock Wing. The Institute Building and the Mortlock Wing have been state-heritage listed. In August 2025, the library was ranked second in a global literary tourism initiative called "1000 Libraries".
History and governance
19th century
On 29 August 1834, a couple of weeks after the passing of the South Australia Act 1834 by the British parliament, a London-based group led by the Colonial Secretary, Robert Gouger, and solicitor Richard Hanson and a number of prominent colonists, including Ernest Giles, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, John Morphett, Robert Torrens Snr, and John Hindmarsh, formed the South Australian Literary Association at the city's Adelphi Chambers. Within a month, the title was changed to the more inclusive South Australian Literary and Scientific Association. This change aimed for "the cultivation and diffusion of useful knowledge throughout the colony". Although the Association lapsed and meetings ceased, a collection of books had been donated by members with the intention of becoming the basis of the new colony's library, and the colonists subsequently brought the collection to the Colony of South Australia aboard the Tam O'Shanter which arrived on 18 December 1836.The first Adelaide Mechanics' Institute met on 23 June 1838, with the event reported by the Southern Australian newspaper. Running into difficulties, the organisation was merged with a revived Literary and Scientific Association, with the new name of the Adelaide Literary and Scientific Association and Mechanics' Institute, electing a committee in July 1839. Over this time, the membership of the association varied between upper-middle-class and lower-middle-class. The library reopened, but the Institute did not have a permanent location, and the focus was on a programme of lectures. However the lectures dwindled and attendances varied, as the Institute tried to function as an adult education institution as well as a learned scientific society, and its last meeting was held in June 1844.
In September 1844, a group of men founded the South Australian Subscription Library, with a collection created by donation and subscriptions, and in 1845 it took over the collection of the Literary and Scientific Association and Mechanics' Institute. A permanent librarian was employed at this time, and the library served its middle-class members.
In 1847, a new Adelaide Mechanics' Institute was founded, by a group of lower-middle class men, led by schoolteacher W. A. Cawthorne. Various talks, discussions and displays were put on. This organisation merged with the South Australian Library in 1848, creating the Mechanics' Institute and South Australian Library, based in Peacock's Buildings, Hindley Street, and with membership moving back to the upper-middle class. Nathaniel Summers was appointed as the first librarian. It subsequently moved to Exchange Chambers, King William Street, but by 1855 had gone into decline.
Meanwhile, other institutes and societies were established throughout the Adelaide suburbs, including the Adelaide Philosophical Society. Some of these institutes asked the government for financial assistance, and Unitarian publisher John Howard Clark suggested the conversion of the Institute into a public institution. A Bill was proposed in Parliament in 1854. Between 1847 and 1856 another 13 mechanics' institutes started in other parts of the colony.
In June 1856 the South Australian Legislative Council passed Act No. 16 of 1855–6, the South Australian Institute Act, which incorporated the South Australian Institute under the control of a Board of Governors, to whose ownership all materials belonging to the old Library and Mechanics' Institute was immediately transferred. This Act also ensured the library would be open to the public free of charge, and granted funding was allocated to it. This made the library very popular particularly amongst artisans and workmen who filled it to capacity in the evenings. At this point it was a lending library, and held a large amount of fictional work. The Act also provided for a museum as part of the new organisation. The suburban institutes became subsidiaries of the SA Institute, as did the Adelaide Philosophical Society and the South Australian Society of Arts.
As new books arrived from Britain, the library expanded and soon needed new accommodation, which was found in North Terrace in 1860. The Adelaide Institute building opened in January 1861, and included rooms for the Adelaide Philosophical Society, the Medical Society and the Choral Society.
The Copyright Act 1878, Part II section 15, required that a copy of every book published in South Australia was to be deposited in the Institute by a process known as legal deposit, for preservation of the books.
The Public Library, Museum and Art Gallery Act 1884 renamed the South Australian Institute as Public Library, Museum and Art Gallery, and also broadened the scope of the Board's control to include the expanding network of regional and suburban institutes. It also created a new, independent body, the Adelaide Circulating Library, to take over the business of circulating books on a subscription basis. It also became the location for university lectures.
20th century
The next important piece of legislation affecting SLSA was the 1939 number 44 Libraries and Institutes Act, which repealed the Public library, Museum and Art Gallery and Institutes Act and separated the Public Library from the Art Gallery of South Australia and South Australian Museum, established its own board and changed its name to the Public Library of South Australia. The new entity thus became a statutory corporation.Various reorganisations occurred through the years following, but the legislation still governing the Library is number 70 Libraries Act, which repealed the Libraries and Institutes Act and the Libraries Act 1955–1977.
During the 1990s, the Library became a Division under a series of departments, responsible to the Minister for the Arts. The State Records Act 1997 separated the responsibility for management and disposal of state government records, bringing this under a State Records Council rather than the Libraries Board.
21st century
From 2001, the library became part of the Division of Arts SA, which was part of the Department of the Premier and Cabinet, continuing to report to the Minister for the Arts.After the election of the Marshall government in March 2018, the post of Minister for the Arts ceased to exist, Arts South Australia was dismantled and its functions transferred to direct oversight by the Department of Premier and Cabinet, Arts and Culture section.
Geoff Strempel was appointed director of SLSA around 2017, during which time he oversaw increased digital preservation. Before his appointment, he was associate director of the 140 public libraries in South Australia. In this position, he establishment of the One Card Network, linking all of the libraries and facilitating quick and efficient inter-library loans among the public libraries. He was awarded the HCL Anderson Award, the Australian Library and Information Association's highest honour, recognising his outstanding service. By late 2024, SLSA had digitised and uploaded around 2000 pages of newspapers to Trove, the National Library of Australia's website that allows free public access to a large amount of digitised historical documents. The library has also acquired over 100,000 images by renowned local aerial photographer Douglas Darian Smith, as well as film memorabilia from filmmaker Scott Hicks' personal archive. Strempel retires on 18 October 2024, but an exhibition of Hicks' items is already planned for 2025.
After Strempel's retirement on 30 September 2024, Megan Berghuis was appointed director, starting on 4 November 2024. She had been working at the City of Unley for the previous 12 years in various managerial roles, and sits on the Libraries Board of South Australia, where she is chair of the Public Libraries Committee. Berghuis remains director as of 2025.