City of Sydney Library - History

History

A free public lending library service has existed in Sydney since 1877 when the New South Wales state government opened a lending branch of the State Library of New South Wales on Macquarie Street. By the end of the same year there were over one thousand registered borrowers. In 1899 the lending library moved to the second floor of the Queen Victoria Building and in 1909 control passed from State to the City of Sydney Council. In 1918 the library moved again, this time to the old concert hall of the Queen Victoria Building. This provided space for a separate children's library to open in the same year. The first branch libraries opened in 1949 which also provided book deposit stations at a number of local schools. In 1970, the City library moved to yet larger premises within the Queen Victoria Building before taking up residence on Pitt Street in 1984. High rent fees prompted it to move again in 1994 to Town Hall House. In 2005 the Town Hall branch moved to its current location at Customs House at Circular Quay.

Read more about this topic:  City Of Sydney Library

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    The history of persecution is a history of endeavors to cheat nature, to make water run up hill, to twist a rope of sand.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    When the history of this period is written, [William Jennings] Bryan will stand out as one of the most remarkable men of his generation and one of the biggest political men of our country.
    William Howard Taft (1857–1930)

    We know only a single science, the science of history. One can look at history from two sides and divide it into the history of nature and the history of men. However, the two sides are not to be divided off; as long as men exist the history of nature and the history of men are mutually conditioned.
    Karl Marx (1818–1883)