Newsflash:

We’re open every day except Good Friday, 29 March. View our Easter opening hours here ›

Blogs

Date

The Flame

The Olympic torch relay, and its climactic cauldron-lighting, is inextricably woven into the lore of The Games.

130 years of the Kelmscott Press

William Morris (1834–1896) — British artist, designer, craftsman, writer and socialist — established the Kelmscott Press at Hammersmith, London, in January 1891.

Self-portrait: Laura McPhee-Browne

A debut novelist observes a common peril.

Update on DX Lab

For the past six years the State Library’s DX Lab has developed new and exciting ways for people to experiment with, access, explore and become part of our collections.

It’s a zap!

‘Looking back on those early days of gay lib in the 70s,’ Terry Batterham comments as he takes a second stroll through the Coming out in the 70s exhibition, ‘I sometimes wonder where we got the energy from.’

Q&A with Vashti Hughes

Underground theatre and cabaret performer Vashti Hughes talks about her one-woman show Dictionary by a Bitch: The Journals of Bee Miles.

Model maker

Peter urgently needed plans for a timber model he was working on. But it was May 2020, and the Library was closed.

Ever yours with love, Charlie

Charlie Pike wrote some 160 letters to Violet, his sweetheart, which have been recently donated to the Library.

In favour of bad art

Jess Scully, Deputy Lord Mayor of Sydney, shares her thoughts on 'bad art'. 

Libraries on the move

Getting to the local library isn’t always easy for Australians living in regional and remote communities, when the nearest branch may be hours away. But with mobile libraries there to bridge the gap it makes life a little easier.

The divine Dante

The great Italian poet Dante Alighieri died in Ravenna, in northern Italy, in 1321. Seven hundred years later, the literary world is commemorating the life of a writer who is considered the father of the Italian language.

Self-portrait: Anchuli Felicia King

A stage and screen writer considers what freedom means now.

Speaking his mind

A lifelong activist’s early diaries and photographs are a compelling record of grassroots activism in Sydney in the 1970s.

Sense of wonder

A high school student found surprising and poetic insights in interviews with gay men recorded in the 1980s.

History on the cards

Some 30 years into her relationship with the Library, professional historian Dr Naomi Parry is still finding unexpected surprises in the collection.

Rare as a Brontë

Before Wuthering Heights, Agnes Grey and Jane Eyre the Brontë sisters published a slim volume of poetry.