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What’s got us talking

Strategic Plan

We’re turning the Library inside out to better serve the changing needs of our diverse communities.

Cover of the Library's Strategic Plan

Free Kids' Tours

Explore the magnificent Mitchell Library and discover some quirky stories these school holidays!

Kids on a tour in the Library's paintings gallery.

Mukurtu artist announcement

We're excited to launch a new collaboration with Gamilaraay and Mandandanji artist and animator, Jake Duczynski! Read the blog for more details.

Jake Duczynski

The Burial Files

Listen to the latest podcast episode – Digging up the dead – now.

Woman looking at the Burial Files podcast on her phone screen.

Collection buzz

Flash Mob

Photographs from the Deadly Awards by Jamie James.

Jazz Down Under

Scrapbooks compiled by the father of Australian jazz, Graeme Bell (1914 – 2012).

Graeme Bell's Jazz Scrapbook

Watercolour views of Sydney in the middle years of the 19th century

The Library has recently aquired a collection of six watercolours by Jacob Janssen (1779-1856).

A painting of a view of Government House, with emus in the garden in the foreground and a horseman on the garden track.

Across the curator’s desk: House construction notebook, 1913

Anna Corkhill, curator in the Library's Research and Discovery team, shares a house construction notebook from 1913.

Sketch for the design of a cottage

The Treaty of Waitangi 1840

On 6 February some 45 chiefs signed a ‘Treaty of Cession’, now known as the Treaty of Waitangi.

Elaborate running writing covers this aged document. Marks of broken dark red wax seals mark the bottom and left side edges of the document.

Across the curator's desk: Peter Hall's 1968 travel sketchbook

Anna Corkhill, curator in the Library's Research and Discovery team, shares a sketchbook from a crucial stage in the development of the Sydney Opera House. 

Sketchbook with pencil drawing of Sydney Opera House

Book of Hours

View our newly digitised Book of Hours, featuring 14 large miniatures, framed by pink marble columns or brown bands, and enter the world of an illuminated manuscript.

Places of Industry - works by Jeff Rigby

The Library has recently acquired a series of 25 works by Blue Mountains-based artist Jeff Rigby.

Delprats Mine

Sydney Female Refuge Society papers, 1863–1911

The Library has just completed digitising minute books of the Sydney Female Refuge Society which provide a remarkable insight into prostitution in nineteenth-century Sydney.

Covers of Sydney Female Refuge Annual Reports

Featured events

Curator Talk: Quick March

Curator Talks
Wednesday
Wednesday 17 July 2019 - 12:30pm to 1:30pm
Talk

Library curator Elise Edmonds will explore themes held within our current World War One related exhibition Quick March which focuses on the experiences of children during the Great War.

dear old dad painting from quick march exhibition

Living Language research day

Friday
Friday 2 August 2019 - 8:30am to 4:30pm
Special event

Join guest speakers, linguists and the Library’s Indigenous team as we explore the extensive language collections held at the State Library of NSW.

Beerabahn or MacGill, Chief of Bartabah or Lake Macquarie, [1830?] / lithograph by H. B. W. Allan