Celebrating 145 Years of State Library of NSW

In 1869 the NSW Government purchased the Australian Subscription Library, which had been established in 1826, to form the Sydney Free Public Library, the first truly public library for the people of NSW. The Mitchell Library, the first library in the country to concentrate entirely on Australian content, opened in 1910.

The Library’s extraordinary collections document the heritage of Australia and Oceania and are one of the State’s most valuable assets. By building, preserving and delivering its collections, including today’s born-digital materials, the Library enables Australians to interrogate our past and imagine our future.