A rare book librarian to celebrate: Mirror of the World: Des Cowley, books and ideas

A Library Planet post by Fiona Kells On 4 August 2022 Des Cowley retired from the State Library of Victoria (SLV) after thirty-seven years of service. Des began working at the State Library in 1985 in the Acquisitions team, Reader Services. He then moved into an entry-level Librarian role in the SLV’s La Trobe Library….

Carlton Library, Melbourne, Australia

A Library Planet post by Fiona Kells. The Carlton Library is on Rathdowne Street in North Carlton, a popular and populous inner-city suburb of Melbourne, Australia. This is a well loved community library. I visited on a very rainy Wednesday afternoon, just before sitting down to dinner at Chin Chin’s at Koto Moon, just a…

Newcastle City Library, Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia

A Libray Planet post by Fiona Kells. The Newcastle City Library occupies the War Memorial Cultural Centre on Laman Street, in the heart of Newcastle. The Library was established via the generosity of Sydney ophthalmologist Dr Roland Pope, who in the late 1940s gifted his personal collection of more than 2,000 books, along with more…

Steve Williams’ Fergus McDurgus Library Project

Sometimes, things just come together and make life a little better. You meet and fall in love with someone, and get a chance to move to the other side of the world. You’re a bit useless at sport, skip school during gym, find the local library is warm and dry, and accidentally discover a lifelong…

Ivanhoe Library, Melbourne, Australia

A Library Planet post by Fiona Kells Situated atop the highest point in the ‘burb, the Ivanhoe Library used to occupy a three-storey 1960s Modernist building. Designed by local architecture firm Leith & Bartlett Pty Ltd, the building featured clean and simple lines, a glass curtain wall, open stairwells and a double-height, open-plan reading room…

From Denmark to Melbourne: A new Captain on everybody’s Library Planet

Back in 2018 Marie and I launched Library Planet – the crowdsource travel guide to libraries of the world. Since then so many fantastic libraries from French Polynesia to Sweden has been added to the map of libraries of the world with yours contributions and willingness to share the library love. As I wrote in the beginning of September,…

Stockholm City Library: An aesthetic experience

Written by Library Planet friend Alejandra Quiroz Hernández Maybe you have seen it illustrating articles about academic libraries or pretty much anything related to librarianship. The most recognized features are those curvy shelfs. Are you for real? A curved stack? What kind of geometric defiance is that? In the corner of Sveavägen and Odengatan, a…