page_title: State Library Victoria
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: State Library Victoria / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Statue of Redmond Barry in front of the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne. Français&#160;: Statue de Redmond Barry, qui se trouve devant la bibliothèque d'État du Victoria, à Melbourne.
context_page_description: The State Library Victoria is the main library of the Australian state of Victoria. Located in Melbourne, it was established in 1854 as the Melbourne Public Library, making it Australia's oldest public library and one of the first free libraries in the world. It is also Australia's busiest library and, as of 2018, the fourth most-visited library in the world.
  The library's vast collection includes over two million books and 350,000 photographs, manuscripts, maps and newspapers, with a special focus on material from Victoria, including the diaries of the city's founders, John Batman and John Pascoe Fawkner, the folios of Captain James Cook, and the armour of Ned Kelly. The library is located in the northern centre of the central business district, on the block bounded by Swanston, La Trobe, Russell, and Little Lonsdale streets.
context_section_description: In 1853, the decision to build a combined library, museum and gallery was made at the instigation of Lieutenant-Governor Charles La Trobe and Mr Justice Redmond Barry, Q.C. (Sir Redmond from 1860). A competition was held, won by the recently arrived architect Joseph Reed, whose firm and its successors went on to design most of the later extensions, as well as numerous 19th-century landmarks such as the Melbourne Town Hall, and the Royal Exhibition Building.
  On the same day of 3 July 1854, the recently inaugurated Governor Sir Charles Hotham laid the foundation stone of both the new library complex and the University of Melbourne. The library’s the first stage (the central part of the Swanston Street wing) opened on 11 February  1856, with a collection of 3,800 books chosen by Mr Justice Barry, the President of Trustees. Augustus H. Tulk, the first librarian, was appointed three months after the opening. The Melbourne Public Library as it was then known was one of the first free public libraries in the world, open to anyone over 14 years of age, so long as they had clean hands.
  The complex of buildings that now house the Library were built in numerous stages, housing various library spaces, art galleries and museum displays, finally filling the entire block in 1992. In 1860 Joseph Reed designed a grand complex for the whole block including a domed section facing Russell Street to House the Museum and Gallery, painting a broad canvas that was more or less followed over the next century. 
  The next stage was the south part of the front wing, opened in 1859, including the elaborate first floor Queen's Reading Room (now Queen's Hall). The northern part was added complete in 1864 by Abraham Linacre, but the classical portico was not built until 1870. Other wings were built are various times, such as Barry Hall, along Little Lonsdale Street, in 1886, McCoy Hall (named for Frederick McCoy, the first director of the National Museum of Victoria, and now the Redmond Barry reading boom), built for the Museum in 1892, Baldwin Spencer Hall facing Russell Street in 1909, and the McAllan Gallery on the LaTrobe Street side, built in 1932.
  A number of halls were built in 1866 for the Intercolonial Exhibition of Australasia just behind the front wing; meant to be temporary, they remained in use until 1909, when work began on the library's famed Domed Reading Room, began. Opened in 1913, it was designed by Bates, Peebles and Smart, the successor to Joseph Reed's firm, now known as Bates Smart. In 1959, the dome's skylights were covered in copper sheets due to water leakage, creating the dim atmosphere that characterised the Library for decades.
  The Library Museums and National Gallery Act 1869 formed a single body to run the Public Library of Victoria, National Gallery of Victoria, National Museum of Victoria (which moved to Library site in 1889), and the Industrial and Technological Museum of Victoria. The Public Library, National Gallery and Museums Act 1944 separated these into four separate institutions sharing the one site.
  The National Gallery of Victoria eventually moved to a new purpose built home in St Kilda Road in 1968 (during renovations of these buildings the gallery returned to its original home briefly from 1999-2002, occupying the Russell Street halls). In 1971 the Lending Library closed. Melbourne's CBD was to be without a public lending library until the opening of the City Library in 2004.
  The Public Record Office Victoria was once the Archives Department of the Library. In 1973 the Public Records Act established the Public Record Office Victoria as the state's archive authority, independent of the Library. The Office moved to Laverton in 1977, then to purpose built home in North Melbourne in 2004. The PROV now frequently supplies exhibits for the Old Treasury Building museum.
  The National Museum and Industrial and Technological Museum merged in 1983 to form the Museum of Victoria. Parts of this combined museum were moved to other sites during the 1990s, with the bulk of the galleries remaining until 1997. At that time the
caption: A statue of Sir Redmond Barry, located within the library's forecourt
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