- Address: 328 Swanston St, Melbourne VIC 3000, Australia;
- Website: slv.vic.gov.au;
- Phone: +61 3 8664 7000;
- Open: from 10 to 21 hours daily
The Victoria State Library, Victoria's central library, is located in the central business district of Melbourne .
The building of the largest state library occupies a whole block and has several reading rooms. The most famous of them is a spacious octahedral hall with a diameter of 34.75 m, which at the time of construction in 1913 was the largest reading room in the world. The interior of the library with massive carved stairs and carpets, with a small picture gallery recalls the setting of the palace of a British aristocrat. The State Library of Victoria is a huge information educational center that offers its readers more than 1.5 million copies of books and 16 thousand periodicals.
History of the foundation
In the first half of the 19th century, printers appeared one after another in Australia. The population's need for information is growing, newspapers are being founded one after another, the circulation of educational and fiction is increasing. The proposal to open a public library in Melbourne came from Governor Charles La Trobe and Supreme Judge Redmond Barry. In 1853, the competition for the best design was announced, which was won by the architect Joseph Reed, who previously had experience in the successful design of urban developments. The building of the building in the strict classical style lasted from 1854 to 1856. At the disposal of the first visitors of the library was only 3,800 volumes, gradually the library fund expanded. For many years in one building with the library housed the city museum and the National Gallery of Victoria, later moved to other buildings.
Victoria's library these days
Today the Victoria State Library is a multifunctional institution that not only receives the necessary literature, but also wander around the Internet, chat with friends, and even play chess (for chess players there are rooms with special chess tables). The courtyard is tucked away under the roof, an additional reading room is organized in it.
Thousands of inquisitive residents of Australia and tourists aspire to the library to see with their own eyes the diaries of the famous Captain Cook, as well as the recordings of John Batman and John Pascoe Foaker, the legendary founders of Melbourne.
In front of the main entrance there is a cozy green lawn and sculpture park. The founders of the library are immortalized in the stone, Redmond Barry (1887) and Charles La Troub (2001), a little further the statue of St. George defeating the dragon (the work of Joseph Edgar Bohm, 1889) and the sculptural image of Joan of Arc, an exact copy the famous Parisian monument of Emmanuel Framia (1907)
In 1992, before the library was laid an unusual architectural fragment of the authorship of Petrus Spronka, now one of the most unusual monuments in the world. Every day on the lawn in front of the library you can see employees of nearby offices and students of the Technological University, who take their breaks and dinners for socializing or reading. On Sunday at the walls of the library, oratorical forums are held, where each participant can speak absolutely on any topic.
How to get there?
The library building is located between the streets of La Trobe, Swanston, Russell and Little Lansdale, a 5-minute walk from the main railway station. For traveling around the city it is convenient to use tram 1, 3, 3A, the landmark is the intersection of La Trobe Street and Swanston Street.
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