Past, Present & Future
The State Library of Victoria is Australia's oldest free public library and the first of Victoria's key cultural institutions. Founded in 1854 when Victoria was barely 20 years old, the Library has continued to reflect the cultural and social development of the state and its people for 150 years.
Today people expect to get information quickly and directly, when and where they want it. The Library is already working to meet these expectations, and its new strategic vision, slv21, will extend this work even further. Increased online services and digital access to collections, and an expanded gateway to the global information world are just the start.
One of the key founders of the Library, Sir Redmond Barry, envisaged an antipodean treasure house that would contain 'the best of everything' and become a 'great emporium of learning and philosophy, of literature, science, and art'. Read about the people and events that have made Barry's vision a reality.
The Library first opened in 1856 with a stock of 3846 books. Today it includes over two million books and serials, one of Australia's largest newspaper collections, hundreds of thousands of pictures, maps, manuscripts and artefacts, as well as materials in digital and multimedia formats.
Designed by celebrated colonial architect Joseph Reed, the Library has been an architectural landmark for almost 150 years. Find out more about the much-loved domed reading room built in 1913, and the massive redevelopment project which is transforming a 19th-century institution into a 21st-century information powerhouse.
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