Reading room
Under the dome.
No machine-readable author provided. Donaldytong assumed (based on copyright claims). — Public domain · BindiS — CC BY 4.0 · Diliff — CC BY 2.5
Australia's oldest public library, founded in 1854 and one of the first free libraries in the world, still on its original site in central Melbourne, in a colonnaded classical building facing a wide lawn where students and visitors sit. Its most famous space is the octagonal reading room under a huge glass dome opened in 1913, with reading desks radiating in rows from the centre; visitors look down on it from the upper balconies in one of the city's most beautiful interior views. The library has free exhibitions of its treasures: manuscripts, rare books, old maps and pieces of Victoria's history, including the armour of Ned Kelly, the most famous bushranger in Australian history. There is a café and spaces to work. Entry is free and it opens daily, and you can climb to the dome galleries to photograph the room from above. It is a quiet stop amid the bustle of Swanston Street.
Under the dome.
A view from above.
On display.
328 Swanston Street, central Melbourne
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