State Library of New South Wales
Encyclopedia
Library
In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...
owned by the state
States and territories of Australia
The Commonwealth of Australia is a union of six states and various territories. The Australian mainland is made up of five states and three territories, with the sixth state of Tasmania being made up of islands. In addition there are six island territories, known as external territories, and a...
of New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. It is located in Macquarie Street
Macquarie Street, Sydney
Macquarie Street is the easternmost street of Sydney's central business district. Macquarie Street extends from Hyde Park at its southern end to the Sydney Opera House at its north.-Description:...
, Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
near Shakespeare Place. The Library hosts many free exhibition
Exhibition
An exhibition, in the most general sense, is an organized presentation and display of a selection of items. In practice, exhibitions usually occur within museums, galleries and exhibition halls, and World's Fairs...
s, both from its own collections and from other organisations such as World Press Photo
World Press Photo
World Press Photo is an independent, non-profit organization based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Founded in 1955 the organization is known for holding the world's largest and most prestigious annual press photography contest....
and the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize
Doug Moran National Portrait Prize
The Doug Moran National Portrait Prize is an annual Australian portrait prize founded by Doug Moran in 1988, the year of Australia's Bicentenary. It is the richest portrait prize in the world with A$150,000 awarded to the winner and A$10,000 awarded to the runner-up...
.
History
The State Library of New South Wales is one of the oldest libraries in Australia, being the first library established in the colony of New South Wales (now a state of Australia) and Australia.Naming
The public library started as the Australian Subscription Library in 1826. It was then bought for £5100 by the New South Wales GovernmentGovernment of New South Wales
The form of the Government of New South Wales is prescribed in its Constitution, which dates from 1856, although it has been amended many times since then...
in 1869 and became the Sydney Free Public Library. In 1895 it was renamed the Public Library of New South Wales until its most recent name change in 1975, when it became the State Library of New South Wales.
Construction
In December 1827 operations began in rented premises in Pitt StreetPitt Street, Sydney
Pitt Street is a major street in central Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The street runs through the entire city centre from Circular Quay in the north to Waterloo, although today's street is in two disjointed sections after a substantial stretch of it was removed to make way for Sydney's...
and in the two years following, the Library led a peripatetic existence having been located a few years in George Street
George Street, Sydney
George Street is one of Sydney's most notable city streets. There are more high rise buildings and more ASX 100 companies located here than anywhere else in Australia, and is well known for being busy around-the-clock...
, Bridge Street
Bridge Street, Sydney
Bridge Street is a street in the CBD of Sydney, Australia. It runs east-west between George Street and Macquarie Street. It is in the Local Government Area of the City of Sydney and the postcode is 2000. The street is 500 metres long...
, Macquarie Street
Macquarie Street, Sydney
Macquarie Street is the easternmost street of Sydney's central business district. Macquarie Street extends from Hyde Park at its southern end to the Sydney Opera House at its north.-Description:...
and Macquarie Place
Macquarie Place
Macquarie Place is a small triangular park in downtown Sydney, Australia. It is located at the corner of Bridge Street and Loftus Street, and is named after Governor Lachlan Macquarie.- History :...
. In 1845 it finally settled its own new building on the corner of Bent and Macquarie Streets.
By 1869 the subscription library was in serious debt, and the New South Wales Government was persuaded to buy it for £5100 (£1500 for the books and £3600 for the building). In September 1869, the Sydney Free Public Library opened its doors with a stock of 20 000 volumes.
The Mitchell Wing
The Library soon outgrew its premises and a new wing was built in the mid-1880s and again by the turn of the century this too was outgrown and plans were underway for a new ‘national’ library building. The stimulus for this was David Scott Mitchell’sDavid Scott Mitchell
David Scott Mitchell was a collector of Australian books, founder and benefactor of The Mitchell Library, Sydney, Australia.-Early life:...
offer of his immense and, at the time, unrivalled collection of Australiana, including the original journals of Abel Tasman
Abel Tasman
Abel Janszoon Tasman was a Dutch seafarer, explorer, and merchant, best known for his voyages of 1642 and 1644 in the service of the VOC . His was the first known European expedition to reach the islands of Van Diemen's Land and New Zealand and to sight the Fiji islands...
, James Cook
James Cook
Captain James Cook, FRS, RN was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer who ultimately rose to the rank of captain in the Royal Navy...
and Matthew Flinders
Matthew Flinders
Captain Matthew Flinders RN was one of the most successful navigators and cartographers of his age. In a career that spanned just over twenty years, he sailed with Captain William Bligh, circumnavigated Australia and encouraged the use of that name for the continent, which had previously been...
, to the people of New South Wales.
The condition of his offer was that a new building be erected to house the collection as a separate library. Work on the Mitchell Wing began in 1906 and finished in 1910. It houses the Mitchell Library reading rooms, work areas and galleries. The Mitchell Wing celebrated its centenary in 2010 and in the lead-up to its centenary (from 2001), showcased their best collections.
From 21 February - 18 April 2011 the galleries will be closed to put up new exhibitions, Moran Prizes 2011 and Carved Trees.
The Dixson Wing
20 years after the completion of the Mitchell Wing, more building took place on the site of the national library. The Dixson Wing, completed in 1929, was added to the south side of the Mitchell Wing to provide storage and gallery space for the extensive collection of historical paintings presented to the library by Sir William Dixson.In 1939 work began on the central section of the building, including the portico, the ornate vestibule and its reproduced Tasman Map in marble mosaic and the main reading room. The building was ready to be used in June 1942 and the Library (as a whole) was under one roof. In 1964, the final section of the sandstone Mitchell Wing was laid on the south east corner. Within 10 years the Library outgrown this space too.
The Macquarie Street Wing
Work began on the Macquarie Street Wing in 1983 and it was opened in 1988 - Australia’s bicentenary - by Queen Elizabeth II in company with Prince PhilipPrince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh is the husband of Elizabeth II. He is the United Kingdom's longest-serving consort and the oldest serving spouse of a reigning British monarch....
. The new building fronts Macquarie Street and links up with the Mitchell Wing above ground and below ground. Andrew Andersons was the design architect for the Macquarie Street Wing. The refurbishment of the Macquarie Street Wing and construction of a contemporary learning space in the glasshouse is currently underway.
The State Reference Library
Located within the Macquarie Street Wing, the State Reference Library reading room contains a comprehensive and diverse collection of Australian and international research material. A number of specialist services are located within the State Reference Library, including the Legal Information Access Centre, Health Information Service and Family History Service.
Collection
The library contains over 5 million items including more than 2 million books, 1.2 million microforms, 1.1 million photographs, as well as newspapers, maps, architectural plans, manuscripts and other items. As well as being a general purpose reference and research library, it contains many historically significant collections dating from the EuropeEurope
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an colonisation
Colonisation
Colonization occurs whenever any one or more species populate an area. The term, which is derived from the Latin colere, "to inhabit, cultivate, frequent, practice, tend, guard, respect", originally related to humans. However, 19th century biogeographers dominated the term to describe the...
of Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, including accounts from Australian explorers and other pioneers, paintings and sketches, and many other historical records.
These are held in the Australiana research collections known as the Mitchell Library (named for David Scott Mitchell, first collector of Australiana) which is continually being added to and the Dixson Library (named after Sir William Dixson), Dixson's personal collection which is not added to. Both are housed within the State Library precinct. The collections grow through purchase, other acquisitions of material and legal deposit for all books published in New South Wales.
Recent acquisitions include 201 personal letters of surveyor John Septimus Roe (1797–1878) and the Edward Close sketchbook (1817–1818).
External links
- Home | State Library of New South Wales - State Library Homepage
- ONE hundred - Celebrating the anniversary of the Mitchell Library, the website for the major showcase exhibition at the Mitchell Library, celebrating its centenary, last year.