City Library re-opens
After 20 years, City Library has undergone a revamp – creating a space for Melburnians and visitors to borrow books, access technology and come together to share ideas.
City Library’s first floor has been modified to address high community demand for additional study space, bookable meeting rooms and quiet study space. The Majorca Room remains available for library programs and as bookable community space. Natural light is in abundance due to the removal of shelving that was blocking windows. In addition to this, the gallery and piano have been retained on the first floor. The mezzanine level has a new reading lounge with newspapers and magazines. The ground floor is home to the new-look Children’s Library with artwork by local illustrator, Sarah Allen, as well as a curated collection of fiction and nonfiction, public computers and copy/printing facilities.
The project team took a sustainable approach to furniture and shelving, repurposing existing items where possible and mixing in new items to give City Library spaces a cohesive uplift. The furniture colour scheme blends with new carpeted areas which draws on tones from local Australian flora.
Artworks from the City of Melbourne Art and Heritage Collection feature in the new City Library. The new curatorial selection features photographs, drawings and film including Andrew Chapman’s images of central Melbourne in the 1970s and 1980s.
City Library’s opening hours have also been extended to 7pm from Monday to Thursday so you can spend more time in this space.
City Library collection
Library users told us they want more spaces available for community meetings, study and coworking in this location. The refreshed City Library meets the needs of our community while continuing to be a welcoming and safe space.
Based on this feedback and analysis of borrowing trends for our books, the collection at City Library has been curated with city residents, workers, students and visitors in mind.
The collection contains fiction, non-fiction, graphic novels, books for children and young adults, community language collections as well as magazines, DVDs and CDs.
Our team worked with library collection experts to redesign the collection. Books that were not retained have been dispersed across the library network, donated, or recycled (if books are unfortunately too damaged to rehome). You can still access the City of Melbourne’s entire collection by reserving and picking up items from City Library.
We regularly review and update our collections across our entire library network to ensure we have a range of much loved and new books for our community to enjoy.
