Spooky stories from the Library
News:
In celebration of the spooky season, we asked staff at the Library to share some eerie, mysterious and spine-chilling tales from their years, and sometimes decades, walking its historic halls.
Researching religion and spirituality at the State Library
Ask a librarian, Collection spotlights:
Discover the diverse collection of works on religion and spirituality held at the State Library Victoria – they are for everyone no matter what path you travel.
Mapping the city with Mahlstedt
Ask a librarian, Collection spotlights:
The Mahlstedt Fire Insurance Plans show Melbourne’s CBD in precise detail. Learn how these incredible resources can be used to track changes to the city throughout the years.
The Library’s virtual volunteers
Some of the Library’s volunteers have been correcting the text of digitised historical Victorian newspapers, and in so doing, revealing more about our past.
When Spanish Flu came to Victoria
Ask a librarian, Our stories, Victorian history:
Spanish flu arrived in Australia in January 1919. With masks, closures, quarantine, inter-governmental squabbles and death, the events of a century ago resonate very keenly today.
Online Collection Spotlight: Britannica Kids
Ask a librarian, Collection spotlights:
What do frogs and salamanders have in common? What’s the largest coral reef on Earth? And who wrote the picture book, ‘Possum Magic’? The Britannica Kids online encyclopaedia doesn’t just offer answers to these questions.
Online Collection Spotlight: World’s Fairs
Ask a librarian, Collection spotlights:
What do Paris’s Eiffel Tower, Seattle’s Space Needle and Melbourne’s Royal Exhibition Building all have in common? Read on to find out!
Book:Top
People & professions, Such was life:
Ah Siug Jong came to Victoria from China to find gold but after a series of incidents he was jailed and eventually committed to an asylum. He left a complex diary which was his attempt to clear his name.
Victoria through the ages: the boom years
In the 1880s, Victoria experienced an unprecedented property bubble. When it eventually burst, it left the economy in tatters.
Such was life
The sky is the limit: pioneering aviator Freda Thompson
In 1934, Australian aviator, Freda Thompson, made history as the first Australian woman to fly solo from England to Australia. Thompson was a pioneer who believed the sky was the limit – she wanted to reach that limit, to feel the adrenaline, to just fly.
Arts
Ailsa O’Connor: highlights of a life of socialist activism, feminism and art
Ailsa O’Connor (1921-1980) was a political activist, painter, sculptor, author and teacher. Throughout her art career she was a member of the Communist Party and associated with the Socialist Realist Group.
