The University Library is the most famous building of KU Leuven Libraries (Leuven, Belgium). The first stone was laid in 1921, to replace the first university library which was burnt down during the First World War. The new library opened its doors to readers in 1928. It was itself partly destroyed by fire during the…
Category: Research Libraries
Athenaeum Library, Melbourne, launch of From Convict Printers to Book Arcades: The History of the Book in Australia Volume I
Stuart Kells’s speech at the launch of From Convict Printers to Book Arcades: The History of the Book in Australia Volume 1. Acknowledgement of country. Distinguished guests and representatives of Melbourne’s book community. It’s great to be back at the Athenaeum Library. Thanks for the opportunity to launch this important book – the definitive publication…
PMI Library: Much loved library is a legislative curiosity
After a long history of evolution, legislative changes mean the Prahran Mechanics Institute is poised for an even brighter future. In 1799 the physician and philanthropist Dr George Birkbeck gave a series of free lectures for the working men of Glasgow. Extremely popular, the lectures led to more permanent facilities dedicated to workers’ education: the Edinburgh…
British Library: Cyber-attack update
From the BL: We’re continuing to experience disruption as a result of a cyber-attack that took place in October 2023. The outage is still affecting our website, online systems and services, as well as some onsite services, however our buildings are open as usual. The attack caused substantial damage that is complex and challenging to…
State Library of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
A Library Planet post by Fiona Kells I visited the State Library of Queensland on a Thursday afternoon in May, 2023, and it was pumping: it just happened to be the opening day of the Brisbane Writers Festival. A happy and relaxed crowd of Festival attendees, participants and organisers, tourists, students, parents with young kids,…
Vancouver Public Library, Canada: A photo essay
A Library Planet post by Christopher Hunt The (Central) Vancouver Public Library is at 350 W. Georgia Street, Vancouver, BC V6B 6B1, Canada.
The PMI Victorian History Library, Melbourne, Australia
A Library Planet post by Jade Koekoe The PMI Victorian History Library Inc. is a community owned and run library specialising in the history of the Australian state of Victoria. The library collection is the only lending collection of its kind in Australia – with over 30,000 books for loan and over 40,000 items on…
Friday essay: the library – humanist ideal, social glue and now, tourism hotspot
Stuart Kells, La Trobe University Last year two Danish librarians – Christian Lauersen and Marie Eiriksson – founded Library Planet: a worldwide, crowdsourced, online library travel guide. According to them, Library Planet is meant to inspire travellers “to open the awesome book that is our world of libraries, cities and countries”. The name of the…
The Kyoto International Manga Museum, Kyoto, Japan
A Library Planet post by Annie Wu. Kyoto International Manga Museum was established to gather, preserve and exhibit manga materials and to be a centre for research into manga culture. The space simultaneously serves as a library and a museum, with around 300,000 manga products in its collection, including books, periodicals and woodblock caricature prints….
Library Planet 