Stained-glass window by Leonard French
One of the delights of living in the capital city is access to the National Library. While I can’t borrow items to take home, I can request anything from their collection which has more than 7 000 000 items. It also houses a delightful café and a bookshop that I can never resist. As a Friend of the National Library, I receive a 10% discount at both the bookshop and the café which makes it a desirable place to visit.
The National Library and I share a birth year. However, time has been kinder to the grand lady on the lake. She has grown into stately resplendence and made her mark on the landscape. Her wide steps invite us to enter a modernist cathedral built to venerate history and knowledge. This is echoed within the building by the tall stained-glass windows on either side of the foyer, which functions like a church narthex.
Once the foyer is traversed, a sentinel verifies the visitor is fit to enter the hallowed halls. From there on, a hush descends. It is one of the few libraries that still has rules about eating and drinking, remaining quiet and using mobile phones. No-one complains.
Today, I spent two hours in the library reading. I observed students, researchers, members of the public accessing the latest issues of magazines. I love that in a world of user pays, this facility is free to use and available to anyone in Australia. You don’t need to be an academic or a writer, just someone who is curious to follow a line of enquiry.
The National Library is a cultural treasure, a gift to the country. There are always interesting exhibitions; currently there is one about migration. In August there is a webinar on family history for beginners, a lecture on Aboriginal perspectives on landscape and a book launch of Australian flora, to name a few. There are collections focusing on maps, oral histories, performing arts, Australiana and Australian writers, and many more. You can access many resources through Trove, a library database owned by the National Library at https://trove.nla.gov.au/.
From Quill to Quote 