I'm not exactly what date to use for our self-guided tour of the State Library of Victoria because it took me several tries before I finished the tour. I'm going to leave it here on Saturday the 16th because that is when I started it.
While walking to our room from the bus stop I noticed an ad for a free walking tour of the library. Googling that led me to I'm Free Walking Tours and the two tours we took, even though that was not my original intention. While waiting for our first tour I stopped in the library to enquire about the library tour. It turns out that is an app for the tour. Ideally I would listen to the tour on my cell phone. As I did not have earphones with me, I read the text instead.
Rather than recreating the wonderful app, I'm going to share my favorite pictures, some of which are not part of the tour. If you are at all curious, I'd recommend following along with the app. If you are mildly curious, I'd recommend skipping to the middle to learn about the family who used to live at the library when the head of household was the overnight guard (their apartment was not preserved as such). There are also a couple of filler stories about odd items found in the library.
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The main reading room (there are others, less fancy)
The desks were designed to flip up to make it
easier to write on them. Now they stay flat for
laptops, though we did see a few in the upright
position for those on iPads or writing. |
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| The Dome |
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| View from above |
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The room in its glory. I wonder when
electricity was added, and when did
each desk get a USB port.
That must have been quite a project!
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| There are also museums inside the library |
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| Entrance to the main reading room |
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| Entranced by the main reading room |
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| Front of the library |
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| St. George statue |
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| Sir Redmond Barry in front of the library |
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| Mecca |
Don's favorite part of the library was the LEGO model on the ground floor. We saw some extremely detailed LEGO displays on the trip. This one, and the one of Sydney Opera House that I saw in a museum later in the trip were the most impressive.
Two places I enjoy visiting when a new-to-me city are the local grocery store and library. Free to enter, but they open my eyes to the community in ways that I don't get from typical tourist sites.
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