Ever wanted to get up close and personal with medieval manuscripts, Italian Renaissance or rare children's books, or discover the finer points of printing techniques?

The week-long Rare Books Summer School, which begins on Monday 8 February, will be hosted by world-renowned experts. This is your chance to discover more about medieval manuscripts, renaissance books, children’s books and printing techniques.

There are four five-day courses to choose from.

'Exploring Medieval Manuscripts: Traditional and Digital Techniques', hosted by Professor Emeritus Margaret Manion and Professor Bernard Muir, will take students through the digital cataloguing of medieval manuscripts, with a focus on the digital reproduction of images and manuscripts.

The development and history of the printed book will be explored by Professor Neil Harris in 'The Italian Renaissance Book, and Afterward'. He will look at the flourishing publishing industry of 16th century Venice in particular.

Merete Smith and Juliet O'Conor will lead 'The Changing Image in Children's Books', which covers the development of English and Australian children's books from the 18th to 20th century. The emphasis will be on printing, imaging and illustration techniques.

'Handpress Printing', tutored by Carolyn Fraser of Idlewild Press, will provide practical printing skills including setting and printing type, and good inking.

Although applications close on 11 December, priority will be given to those who apply before Friday 27 November.

Find out more and apply >

Talk about what lies next to you at night – on your bedside table – at the Bedside Books Club. Meet other bedtime readers over a glass of wine and discuss your favourite books as well as those that didn't make the cut.

The next book club meeting will be held at Albert Park Library on Tuesday 10 November.

Comedienne Monica Dullard and author Sofie Laguna will be special guests on the night.

This free event runs from 6.30pm to 8pm. Bookings are essential.

Find out details and book >

The Library will be closed on Melbourne Cup Day, Tuesday 2 November.

If you are planning on using items from the offsite collections on Wednesday 4 November, you will need to place your order at least two days ahead.

Rare books, manuscripts, maps and pictures stored onsite and offsite need to be ordered by 3pm on Monday 2 November, and books and journals stored offsite need to be ordered by 5.30pm on Monday 2 November.

If you would like to use offsite newspapers on Wednesday 4 November, you will need to order them by 5.30pm on Friday 30 October.

The Library’s café, Mr Tulk, will also be closed on Melbourne Cup Day.

Read more about the Library's opening hours >

Fourteen poets extraordinaire have slam-dunked their way into the Victorian final of the Australian Poetry Slam, which will be held at the Library on Thursday 12 November.

The state final follows on from heats held in regional and metropolitan Victoria during September and October. Two poets are chosen from each heat to compete in the state final.

Competitors at the Victorian final will recite a two-minute original poem in any style they choose. The winner and runner-up will go on to represent Victoria in the national final, which will be held at the Sydney Opera House in December.

And it's not just the poets who can win prizes – some great prizes are up for grabs by the audience as well.

Drinks will be available on the night and there will be special guests attending including poet and spoken word performer Emilie Zoey Baker.

The Victorian final will be held in Experimedia at the State Library at 8pm.

Find out details and book tickets >

Historical treasures from the State Library of Victoria's magnificent collection will hit the road in the Travelling Treasures tour during October and November.

Highlights include a hand-written copy of Melbourne's earliest newspaper; the Jerilderie Letter, written by Ned Kelly in defence of his crimes; and early correspondence between Sonya Hartnett and her publisher.

Experts from the State Library of Victoria will give free talks and answer audience questions about the items on tour, all of which are drawn from the Library's The Independent Type exhibition.

The free touring exhibition will visit Lakes Entrance on 27 October, Sale on 28 October, Traralgon on 29 October and Frankston on 26 November. All events will be held from 6pm to 7.30pm.

Find out more about Travelling Treasures >

The State Library of Victoria invites students to apply for the 2010 AGL Shaw Summer Research Fellowships.

Three $1200 fellowships are on offer to students enrolled at a Victorian university who are pursuing honours or their first postgraduate degree or diploma.

The fellowships provide early-career scholars with an opportunity to work closely with the rich resources of the State Library for an uninterrupted period over January and February 2010.

Recipients will use the Library's collections to inform academic study, prepare a publication, or for another purpose relating to university study.

The Library will grant two fellowships to Melbourne residents and award a third fellowship to a student from regional Victoria, together with a living-away-from-home allowance.

Applications for the 2010 AGL Shaw Summer Research Fellowships close on Friday 13 November 2009.

Find out more about the AGL Shaw Fellowships >

State Library of Victoria websites will be unavailable from 10pm AEST on Friday 16 October until 6am AEST on Saturday 16 October due to network maintenance beyond the Library's control.

The Library's online catalogue and all State Library of Victoria websites including the Vicnet community portal will be unavailable for the eight-hour period.

We apologise for the disruption and hope the overnight maintenance is not an inconvenience.

The ten books shortlisted for the third annual Inky Awards are now live on the State Library of Victoria's youth literature website, insideadog.

The Inkys are the only teen book awards in Australia where young readers decide who wins. Readers aged 20 and under are encouraged to read the shortlisted novels and vote for their favourite on insideadog by 20 November.

Local authors Richard Harland, Simmone Howell, Randa Abdel-Fattah, Adrian Stirling and David Metzenthen are shortlisted for the celebrated Golden Inky for an Australian book. The winner will receive $2000 in prize money.

Nominees for the Silver Inky, for an international book, are John Green, Sherman Alexie, Suzanne Collins, Mal Peet and Mariko and Jillian Tamaki.

As well as voting in the Inkys, young readers can enter the Creative Reading Prize by sending in a creative response to a book they love. Entries can take any format – short story, poem, video, song or even cupcake!

The winners of the Golden and Silver Inkys and the Creative Reading Prize will be announced at the State Library of Victoria on 26 November 2009.

The Inky Awards and the insideadog website were founded by the Library's Centre for Youth Literature to promote reading for pleasure among teenagers.

Find out more about the 2009 Inky Awards >

The State Library of Victoria has launched a new-style Search that enables Library users to search across all the Library's collections in one easy, powerful search.

The new-style Search helps Library users find exactly what they are looking for in the Library's collections by providing numerous ways to limit search results, and suggesting related resources and other relevant searches. It is especially helpful for locating articles, as it allows researchers to search for articles across many databases at the same time.

A new feature called 'eShelf' gives Library users their own personal workspace, where they can save their search results, store items for later use and add their own notes. Users can also add tags and ratings to items, write book reviews and share comments.

The new-style Seach is a component of the Library's slv21 project, which aims to increase online services and provide more digital access to its unique collections. As part of this project the Library has developed digital versions of many of its collection items, and an online viewer that enables users to view items with enhanced functionality. Another valuable feature of the project is the recently-launched Victorian Government Gazette website, an online archive of public notices dating from 1836.

Use the new-style Search >

Christos Tsiolkas has scooped the prestigious $30,000 Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction for The Slap in the 25th Victorian Premier's Literary Awards.

Chloe Hooper's The Tall Man: Death and Life on Palm Island has won the non-fiction category, the $30,000 Nettie Palmer Prize.

The winners of the awards, across 11 categories, were announced by the Hon. John Brumby, Premier of Victoria, at an awards dinner on 1 September.

Other winners of awards this year include:

• Tom Griffith's essay 'We Have Still Not Lived Long Enough', which reflects on the Victorian bushfires
• Luke Davies' 'The Penalty is Death: Inside Bali's Kerobokan Prison', about life on death row for two of the Bali Nine
• Sue Saliba's Something in the World Called Love, awarded the Prize for Young Adult Fiction
• Lally Katz, Goodbye Vaudeville Charlie Mudd, awarded the Louis Esson Prize for Drama.

The Prize for an Unpublished Manuscript by an Emerging Victorian Writer was won by Amy Espeseth for Sufficient Grace, the story of two young girls growing up in rural Wisconsin.

Mr Brumby congratulated the State Library of Victoria, which has administered the awards for the past 12 years.

'In 2010 the administration of the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards will pass to the newly created Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas, joining a range of initiatives and programs to foster and support writing in Victoria,' he said.

Read more about the 2009 Premier's Literary Awards winners >

The 2009 longlist for Australia's only teen-choice book awards, the Inkys, has been announced.

Established by the Library's Centre for Youth Literature and now in its third year, the Inky Awards acknowledge outstanding literature for young adults.

Among the titles on the Golden Inky list for best Australian book are Anthony Eaton's Into White Silence, Richard Harland's Worldshaker and Randa Abdel-Fattah's Where the Streets Had a Name.

The Silver Inky longlist for international works includes Exposure by Mal Peet, Girl at Sea by Maureen Johnson and Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie.

Golden and Silver Inky winners from 2007 Simmone Howell and John Green have both made a return to the Inkys longlist this year with their latest books.

A shortlist of three titles in each category will be announced on 9 October and readers aged 12 to 18 will be invited to vote for their favourite by SMS or through the insideadog website.

Teenagers can also enter the Inkys Creative Reading Prize, an award for a creative tribute to a book that can be in any form the reader wishes.

See the Inkys 2009 longlist >

The works shortlisted for the 2009 Premier's Literary Awards have been announced by the Hon. Lynne Kosky, the Arts Minister, at the State Library of Victoria.

There are 11 categories of shortlisted works, including journalism, poetry, fiction, science writing, drama and musical theatre.

'Melbourne and Victoria are home to a wonderful culture of writing, publishing and reading,' said Ms Kosky. 'This year's shortlist features both established and emerging writers across all categories and I'm very proud to say that half of the shortlisted writers are Victorian.'

The shortlist for the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction, which is for a published novel or collection of short stories, is The Pages by Murray Bail (Text Publishing), Dog Boy by Eva Hornung (Text Publishing), The Boat by Nam Le (Penguin), The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas (Allen & Unwin) and Breath by Tim Winton (Penguin).

The judges of the Vance Palmer Prize - Peter Mews, Antoni Jach and Jane Sullivan - commented that they were 'particularly attracted to novels that exhibited originality, energy and a distinctive voice'.

Other works shortlisted for awards include:

• The Tall Man: Death and Life on Palm Island by Chloe Hooper (Hamish Hamilton)
• The Henson Case by David Marr (Text Publishing)
• A Week in Kinglake, Michael Vincent's bushfire reports for ABC Radio.

Read more about the 2009 Premier's Literary Awards shortlist >

The winners of the Premier's Literary Awards will be announced by the Hon. John Brumby, Premier of Victoria, at an awards dinner on Tuesday 1 September. Alexis wright will be guest speaker and Eddie Perfect will MC the event.

Find out how to make a booking for the awards dinner >