State Library of Victoria - Melbourne

Melbourne's weather has been all over the place, so when I found myself in the city yesterday with a want to take some photos and it was drizzle-ing rain - not exciting, people with umbrellas looking distressed rain, pissy little, can't ever really tell rain I figured I would retire to one of my favourite places - the State Library of Victoria.

Built in 1854 is one of the oldest 'free' libraries in the world, meaning it was open to anyone (over the age of 14 and importantly - with clean hands) - although it's most famous part - 'The dome' was built in 1913

Wikipedia claims in 2018 that it was the fourth most visited library in the world - with just of 2 million visitors, which sounds like a lot but is really only about 5,500 a day - and I must admit everytime I'm in there it is both incredibly busy, but there is always somewhere I can hide.

In this visit I managed to take some photos, flip through a couple of books in two different reading rooms, have a little break in a 'creative room' and see four different exhibitions, not bad for a quick pop in.

But enough of me singing it's praises - lets see some photos

The first two are from the newly re-opened Ian Potter Reading room - this is the original library, but has been closed to the public since 2003 - only reopening in 2019 - it is a stunning room, far less popular than The Dome and home to the very important Chess room (and Chess book collection)

Look at the detail on this column as well

There are about 7 or 8 different reading rooms, a few galleries, some spaces for kids and teenagers and people with start-ups or something but the real show stopper and where most of the tourists are, and absolutely the worst place to sit if you actually want to do some work is The La Trobe Reading room or 'The Dome'

Designed to emulate the British Museum in London and the Library of Congress in Washington, the octagonal building consists of a basement, ground floor, first floor reading room and four gallery levels and a big old 'skylight' at the top

Interesting fact - each of the seats/desk down there have a plaque on them from a donor - I sat at Dame Elizabeth Murdochs - that's right Rupert's Mum - not sure the donations (and she made millions of dollars of them) makes up for giving birth to the Devil.

Oh, arty.