Indigenous Children’s Books
Today, Indigenous Literacy Day, we celebrate Indigenous authored and illustrated children’s books on a range of topics.
Our stories
Exploring galaxies and rare books for National Science Week
From a first edition of Newton’s Principia Mathematica (1632) to the first Star Atlas ever produced (1729), the Library’s collection contains a number of early astronomical books.
Austen’s appeal: how Jane Austen went from anonymous to acclaimed
Jane Austen transcends time. Her work critiques 18th century England but it remains compelling to contemporary readers. Her terrific characters, realism, and her sense of irony and humour have earned Austen critical acclaim and a wide audience, inspiring countless readers and writers. All that for a writer who spent her entire writing career anonymous.
Nikola Tesla: the man who gave electricity to the world
Nikola Tesla was an electrical genius. He was a visionary who captured the imagination of engineers, entrepreneurs and the public with his futuristic concepts and vivid demonstrations of the power of electricity.
Get a taste of the cuisines of the world
There’s more to books about food than just recipes. They can touch on the histories of culture, travel and more from around the world. Our collections reflect this diversity.
Let us all combine: refugee stories in Australia
Australian history is rich with refugee stories. Our shores have long been a destination for those fleeing war and persecution: from Prussia, 179 years ago; from post-World War Two Europe; and from early 1980s Vietnam. Throughout it all, we’ve seen policies that encourage and restrict immigration.
Hope within the darkness: Anne Frank’s diary, 70 years on
This year marks 70 years since the publication of Anne Frank’s diary. It was first published in Dutch as Het Achterhuis (The Annex), and later appeared in English as The Diary of a young girl. It went on to sell more than 30 million copies, and has been translated into nearly 70 million languages.
Meet some of the team behind Australia’s oldest public Library
This week we’re celebrating our wonderful team as part of the Australian Library and Information Association’s Library and Information Week. From librarians and technicians to photographers and conservators, we have more than 300 staff who work to run Australia’s oldest public Library. We hope you celebrated your library this week too.
From Melbourne to the stars: 5 great maps from our collection
We have well over 110,000 maps in our collection— enough to carpet metropolitan Melbourne. Here are five highlights.
Meek’s Atlas: The story of a 155 year old oversized map
In late 2015, thirteen uncatalogued oversized maps and charts held in the Library’s Maps Collection were prioritised for treatment during a routine collection survey. Further investigation revealed two significant 1862 photolithographs of the 1861 oversized pen-and-ink drawing Meek’s Atlas of the British Colonies in Continental and Insular Australia.
