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What’s got us talking

Microview 3000

The digitally enchanted microfiche reader shows the first 500 items accessed each day from the Library's collection.

DX Lab fellowship

Applications now open for the $30,000 digital fellowship. 

A woman standing in front of two projector screens showing pipelines and gravestones.

Children's Library Appeal

Please help us bring the Children’s Library to life.

Family Sunday

Come along for a fun day at the Library on Sunday 26 May.

Collection buzz

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

Family Sunday

Kids at the Library
Sunday
Sunday 26 May 2019 - 10:30am to 3pm
Workshop

Join us for a full day of family fun at the State Library for the second Family Sunday on 26 May!

preschool children running down a wood lined tunnel

Scholar Talk: Printing Religion in Australia

Scholar Talks
Tuesday
Tuesday 4 June 2019 - 11am to 12pm
Talk

This talk will provide insights into the State Library of NSW collections of private reading bibles. From Indigenous language translations to bibles made for bush life, religion became bound up with a vision of cosmopolitan Australia.

Historical Authority and Alternative Voices

Wednesday
Wednesday 5 June 2019 - 5:30pm to 6:30pm
Talk

This session addresses alternative voices and ways that journalists and novelists write about and use history in their work.  

Shortstacks Short Film Festival

Awards
Wednesday
Wednesday 12 June 2019 - 5:30pm to 7pm
Special event

Enjoy an exclusive screening of the most imaginative entries shortlisted for the State Library of NSW’s inaugural short film prize. The winners will be announced on the night by Australian film industry royalty and Shortstacks judge, Margaret Pomeranz.

Camera person in front of the Mitchell Library