Hello and welcome to this short audio tour exploring the history and legacy of the State Library of Victoria

In this guide, I’m going to take you through the last 150 or so years of the library's history and the various changes its gone through. Over the next couple of years, the library is undergoing some major redevelopments as part of its ‘Vision 2020’ initiative. Old areas will be opened up, rooms restored and new spaces will be built. I felt that this was a better time than ever to talk about the history of this building.

These changes are being made in order to help the library better serve the community, and I think to better understand this it's worth seeing the different roles the library has played over the years, and the successes and failures it's had along the way.