Ton-up for City Library

October marks the centenary of City of Sydney Library, and the City is turning on a host of events to celebrate, including an official function this Thursday, October 15.

But although the Library of the City of Sydney was established in 1909, when the Municipal Council of Sydney officially assumed responsibility for the Lending Branch and renamed it the Sydney Municipal Library, the bones of the institution date all the way back to the formation of a committee in 1826. Their efforts resulted in the opening of the Australian Subscription Library in rented premises in Pitt Street, in December 1827. According to City Historian Lisa Murray, the current collection still contained items from these early days: “really early published journals associated with people in the early colony,” she said.

By 1869, however, the subscription library was burdened by debt, and the NSW Government was persuaded to buy it for £5100. Thus, the Sydney Free Public Library opened its doors, with a stock of 20,000 volumes.

After 1909, it took fifty years for the City’s map of libraries to be completed, when the opening of Kings Cross Library meant no-one in the local government area needed to walk more than half a mile to obtain free library services. This process was accelerated by the growth of local government area boundaries in 1949, when the Sydney area expanded to include a number of smaller councils like Redfern, Waterloo, Alexandria, Paddington and Kings Cross. A further fifty years on, and the network now covers eight branches, boasting over 38,000 members and a collection of more than 480,000 items.

Anecdotal highlights from the Library’s history remind one that significant progress has been made when it comes to freedom of expression, and indeed public tolerance of that expression. In 1911, the City Librarian refused a reader’s request to stock the works of one Oscar Wilde, on the grounds “an unsavoury odour hangs round his name”. The record for the biggest late fee, meanwhile, surely belongs to a Bondi man, who borrowed Edgar Wallace’s The Traitor’s Gate in 1932. It was returned by a descendant in 1991 – a trifling 59 years later.

Details of the Library’s celebrations throughout October can be found at any City of Sydney Library, or on the City’s website.