Collection spotlights, Reference desk, Victorian history:
‘Do you shut for tea,… will I have to climb a ladder,…where are the children’s books?’, explore a wide variety of reference enquiries recorded in a handwritten notebook by two library staff, during their time at State Library Victoria in the 1940s.
Ask a librarian, Collection spotlights, Our stories, Rare Books & Arts:
To celebrate Trans Awareness Month 2025, we turn our attention to one of the fascinating volumes in State Library Victoria’s Rare Books Collection: Leslie Feinberg’s ‘Stone butch blues.’ The book brings with it stories of struggle — both within and beyond it’s pages — along with questions about control, artistic ethics and the ways we find (and too often don’t find) the stories we seek: stories of people like us.
The Library was founded in 1854 on principles of the right to access to information – one of the first free public libraries in the world. The UNESCO International Day for Universal Access to Information highlights the role access to information can play in contributing to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 16, which is to promote ‘just, peaceful and inclusive societies.’
Collection Development & Description:
It often takes a village to catalogue a rare book. In this blog post, SLV rare books cataloguer Nina Whittaker shares the dynamic, and transnational, process of cataloguing a Ukrainian prayer book. This journey takes us from Melbourne to Croatia, to Bosnia and the Yugoslav People’s Army, and ultimately through to the Ukrainian migrant community in Geelong and the 2016 SLV Ukrainian Fellowship
