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Mirror of the World

About

The Mirror of the World: books & ideas website was inspired by the Library's onsite permanent exhibition of the same name. Both draw on the incredible wealth of material in the State Library of Victoria's Rare Books Collection.

This website offers people unprecedented access to a remarkable range of rare and precious items from this collection, many of which are now so fragile that they must be carefully stored in climate-controlled conditions.

It also provides visitors to the site with a rich, multimedia experience through digitised interactive content. This content includes video presentations, audio recordings of book readings, images that can be examined in fine detail using zoom and pan tools, pages of books that can be turned virtually, a timeline of Library rare book editions featured on the website, and more.

The Rare Books Collection

The Library's Rare Books Collection is considered the most significant in Australia. It contains two major collections - the Australian collection and the non-Australian collection. 

The Australian collection features 18th and early 19th century items about European voyages, exploration and settlement. The non-Australian Collection contains over 19,000 works that focus on British and European history, literature, travel, topography, botany and ornithology, as well as books about the art and design of book illustration and production techniques.

Rare items also include delicate manuscripts with fine bindings, the first books ever printed using movable type, first editions, as well as classic and seminal works from some of the most famous people in history. Many of these are featured on this website.

Items in the rare books collection can be located in the Library's Catalogue. They can only be viewed by appointment in the Heritage Collections Reading Room.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the many people who have contributed to the development of this website. For a complete list see the credits page.

Images used on this website

The Library acknowledges and expresses its appreciation to copyright owners and donors of material who have given kind permission for reproduction of their material. The Library is continuing the endeavour to trace copyright owners and, in the meantime, some items have been reproduced here in good faith. We would be pleased to hear from copyright owners.