State Library Victoria


State Library Victoria is the state library of Victoria, Australia. Located in Melbourne, it was established in 1854 as the Melbourne Public Library, making it Australia's oldest public library and one of the first free libraries in the world. It is also Australia's busiest public library and, as of 2023, the third busiest library globally.
The library has remained on the same site in the central business district since it was established fronting Swanston Street, and over time has expanded to cover a block bounded also by La Trobe, Russell, and Little Lonsdale streets. The library's collection consists of over five million items, which in addition to books includes manuscripts, paintings, maps, photographs and newspapers, with a special focus on material from Victoria, including the diaries of the European founders of present-day Melbourne John Batman and John Pascoe Fawkner, the folios of colonial explorer James Cook, and items related to Ned Kelly, notably his armour and the original Jerilderie Letter.

History

19th century

In 1853, the decision to build a combined library, museum and gallery was made at the instigation of Governor of Victoria Charles La Trobe and Sir Redmond Barry. A competition was held, won by the recently arrived architect Joseph Reed, whose firm and its successors went on to design most of the later extensions, as well as numerous 19th-century landmarks such as the Melbourne Town Hall, and the Royal Exhibition Building.
On the same day of 3 July 1854, the recently inaugurated Governor Sir Charles Hotham laid the foundation stone of both the new library complex and the University of Melbourne. The library's first stage opened on 11 February 1856, with a collection of 3,800 books chosen by Mr Justice Barry, the President of Trustees. Augustus H. Tulk, the first librarian, was appointed three months after the opening. The Melbourne Public Library as it was then known was one of the first free public libraries in the world, open to anyone over 14 years of age, so long as they had clean hands.
The complex of buildings that now house the Library was built in numerous stages, housing various library spaces, art galleries and museum displays, finally filling the entire block in 1992. In 1860 Joseph Reed designed a grand complex for the whole block including a domed section facing Russell Street to House the Museum and Gallery, painting a broad canvas that was more or less followed over the next century.
The next stage was the south part of the front wing, opened in 1859, including the elaborate first floor Queen's Reading Room. The northern part was added complete in 1864 by Abraham Linacre, but the classical portico was not built until 1870.
A number of temporary halls and a pagoda were built in 1866 for the Intercolonial Exhibition of Australasia just behind the front wing. From 1870, some of these housed the Industrial & Technological Museum of Victoria. That year, author, journalist and bohemian figure Marcus Clarke joined the library staff, serving as sub-librarian from 1874 until his death in 1881.
The Library Museums and National Gallery Act 1869 formed a single body to run the Public Library of Victoria, National Gallery of Victoria, National Museum of Victoria, and the then embryotic I&T Museum.
In 1875 the McArthur Gallery was built to house the NGV.
Barry Hall, along Little Lonsdale Street, was built in 1886. This now houses the Wheeler Centre. In 1887, the Buvelot Gallery opened for the NGV,. It now houses the Arts Reading Room.
1892 saw extensive expansion on the site. In that year, what is now the Cowen Gallery and Victoria Gallery opened for NGV use. The Lending Library opened. And what is now the Redmond Barry Reading Room was built to house the I&T Museum. In 1899, this was taken over by the National Museum, which renamed it McCoy Hall after Frederick McCoy, its first director. The I&T Museum was put into storage.

20th century

In 1909, most of the remaining Intercolonial Exhibition buildings were closed and the Great Hall was demolished. On part of the land they occupied, Baldwin Spencer Hall was built, and work began on the library's famed Domed Reading Room. Opened in 1913, it was designed by Bates, Peebles and Smart, the successor to Joseph Reed's firm, now known as Bates Smart. Its construction led to much less use of Queen's Hall, which led to it becoming the home of a reborn I&T Museum in 1915.
The reading room was refurbished and reopened in 2003 as the La Trobe Reading Room, with the dome's skylights that had been hidden behind copper sheathing since 1959 again revealed.
In 1928 the South Rotunda opened. The McAllan Gallery on the LaTrobe Street side was built in 1932. In 1940, the North Rotunda opened.
The Public Library, National Gallery and Museums Act 1944 organisationally separated the four major cultural institutions, while they continued to share the one site.
In 1959, the dome's skylights were covered in copper sheets due to water leakage, creating the dim atmosphere that characterised the Library for decades.
In 1963, the south-west courtyard next to the dome became a planetarium.
In 1965, the La Trobe Library was opened to house the Library's Australiana collections. This building later became the Conference Centre and Theatrette.
The National Gallery of Victoria moved to a new home in St Kilda Road in 1968. This led to the I&T Museum moving out of Queen's Hall and into the NGV's buildings. Queen's Hall returned to Library use.
In 1971 the Lending Library closed. Melbourne's CBD was to be without a public lending library until the opening of the City Library in 2004.
Public Record Office Victoria was once the Archives Department of the Library. In 1973 the Public Records Act established the Public Record Office as the state's archive authority, independent of the Library. The Office moved to Laverton in 1977, then to North Melbourne in 2004. PROV now frequently supplies exhibits for the Old Treasury Building museum.
File:Melbourne City Loop Museum Station, now Melbourne Central, under construction 1974 on the corner of La Trobe and Swanston Streets 1.jpg|thumb|Construction of Museum station, now Melbourne Central, under La Trobe Street in 1974, with the library visible in the background
In 1973, construction began on Museum station, which, upon completion in 1981, provided direct heavy rail access to the State Library for the first time. The National Museum and what was now known as the Science Museum of Victoria merged in 1983 to form the Museum of Victoria, filling the Russell St end of the site. Part of this combined museum was moved to Spotswood to form Scienceworks in 1992, with the bulk of the galleries remaining until 1997. At that time the remaining museum closed temporarily before part reopened elsewhere as the Immigration Museum in 1998, and the rest as the Melbourne Museum in 2000.
The Library underwent major refurbishments between 1990 and 2004, designed by architects Ancher Mortlock & Woolley. The project cost approximately A$200 million.
In 1995, the north-west courtyard next to the dome was glassed in to become a reading room. In 1998, the north-east courtyard was glassed in to become the Newspaper Reading Room.
The NGV returned to the Library building from 1999 to 2002, occupying the Russell Street halls while its St Kilda Road buildings were renovated.
The reading room closed in 1999 to allow for renovation, when the skylights were reinstated.
By the late 1990s, on Sundays between 2.30 pm and 5.30 pm, a speakers' forum took place on the library forecourt. Orators took turns in speaking on various subjects, and it was a popular location for protest meetings and a rallying point for marches.

21st century

A building redevelopment included the creation of a number of exhibition spaces which opened between 2001 and 2003. Some of these are used to house permanent exhibitions The Mirror of the World: Books and Ideas and The Changing Face of Victoria, as well as a display from the Pictures Collection in the Cowen Gallery. As a result of the redevelopment, State Library Victoria could now be considered one of the largest exhibiting libraries in the world.
The now renamed La Trobe Reading Room reopened in 2003. Also in 2003, the final dome-side courtyards were enclosed and became the Arts Reading Room and Experimedia.
In February 2010, the southern wing of the library building on Little Lonsdale Street was reopened as the Wheeler Centre, part of Melbourne's city of literature initiative.
In 2015 the Library embarked on a five-year, million redevelopment project, Vision 2020, to transform its public spaces, programs and facilities to better meet the changing needs of the community. On 29 April 2015 the Minister for Creative Industries Martin Foley announced that the 2015-16 State Budget would provide million towards the redevelopment of State Library Victoria, including the restoration of the Queen's Hall, the creation of a rooftop garden terrace, a dedicated children's and youth space, and the opening up 40 per cent more of the building to the public. In late 2017, the library's contribution of million from donations was eventually raised. In September 2018, the main Swanston Street entrance was temporarily closed and replaced by the newly refurbished Russell Street and La Trobe Street entrances.
In December 2019 the Library officially completed its Vision 2020 redevelopment project. A huge amount of space left vacant for nearly 20 years was again open to the public.
In 2024, the Library faced controversy for canceling online writing workshops aimed at teenagers, reportedly due to the host authors' pro-Palestine views in the Israel-Gaza war, despite the official reason being a "child and cultural safety review".

Forecourt

The grassy lawn in front of the library's grand entrance on Swanston Street is a popular lunch-spot for the city's workers and students at the adjacent RMIT University. Originally enclosed by a picket fence, then by a wrought iron fence and gates in the 1870s, the space was opened up with the removal of the fence and the creation of diagonal paths in 1939.
The forecourt includes a number of statues. A pair of bronze lions flanked the entry from the 1860s until they were removed in 1937 due to deterioration. A memorial statue of Sir Redmond Barry, Q.C., by James Gilbert and built by Percival Ball was installed on the central landing of the main stairs in 1887. Flanking the entrance plaza are Saint George and the Dragon, by the English sculptor Sir Joseph Edgar Boehm, installed in 1889 and Jeanne d'Arc, a replica of the statue by French sculptor Emmanuel Frémiet, installed in 1907. World War I commemorative statues 'Wipers' and 'The Driver' were at the centre points of the 1939 diagonal paths, but were relocated to the ground of the Shrine of Remembrance in 1998. A statue of Charles La Trobe, by Australian sculptor Peter Corlett, was installed in 2006 in the north east corner of the lawn.
In 2012, the Dromkeen Foundation and Scholastic Australia gifted the entire Dromkeen Collection, along with the Dromkeen archive, to State Library Victoria. The collection includes a number of sculptures featuring children's book characters that are installed in the Library forecourt.
The forecourt is often used for rallies and protests.