Photo： Patrick Rodriguez
Established in 1854, the State Library of Victoria is the oldest library in Australia and one of the first free public libraries in the world. The library houses over 2 million items, in addition to books, it also includes personal manuscripts, maps, old magazines and serials, newspapers, comics, old advertisements and theatre programmes, promoting reading while documenting the history of a city at the same time. Each year the library adds 70,000 items to its rich collection, and meanwhile working hard to develop its digital library, where resources such as online image archives and galleries are available. So far 500,000 library items have been digitized.
