State Library of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia Reviews

Such a wonderful library! Play chess with others is really fun!

Great place to study Tired at the gate square Playing chess with oz

Great place to study and work!
The beautiful library offer to its visitors desks and tables with plenty space, good illumination, comfortable chairs and free wifi, besides the significant amount of varied physical and digital information available.

Moreover, on site are placed historical exhibitions regarding important Australian events and characters.

Haven t been to the Victoria library yet, but it looks quite pretty though, I wanna have a go:)

Located in the heart of Melbourne City Center, with ancient and very beautiful architecture, where you can relax and search with immense knowledge base ... great

The speed of the internet at this library is too slow.
Too much disconneted.

The largest library in Melbourne, with free Wi-Fi, a large number of rental desktop PCs are available, 3 floors, anyone can enter

Pretty decent wifi, Eerily silent and peaceful, lovely setting to study particularly given the power outlets everywhere and clean bathrooms

Such a beautiful place for reading. Gorgeous architecture.

VERY CALM LIBRARY, VAST AMOUNT OF BOOKS AND DOCUMENTATION

This is the grandest and most funky library in the country and unlike most I have visited it's full of people studying, relaxing or just checking out the space - last time I visited they had a loud music festival - now that's a cool library.

Nice place

Closed on Christmas :'(

This place is gorgeous and to think it is free to the public is just insane.

Walked by here and there was a ton of people just hanging around this area and having a good time. Did not really walked around but would had if I knew that the architecture is so amazing when I saw the show "Running Man" which was also film in this location. However, perfect timing since there was a FREE Rome Exhibition going on and had a chance to look at a look of art work that is on architecture, which was a treat.

Nice place to just come to and sit around and relax.

Finally a library with a quiet section where you can actually get some study done. Awesome resource on pretty much everything.

My favorite place in the city the amount of book collections is jaw-dropping. Very accessible, just right in front of the Melbourne Central Station

If you are visiting the City, must check this beautiful building.

Sometimes I go here for a different place to study without distractions.

I love walking around here and it is a very peaceful place to study with a lot of study areas, the architecture is also amazing

There are some rooms you can visit in the library, but our favourite is the children space.

This library is amazing! All book lovers will be at paradise. It's incredible to see so much books of all generations, the decor will bring you to another planet and you find yourself being like a writer..
Enjoy this chance to have access to this knowledge.. It's wonderful!

Lots of historical artifacts and exhibits located off of the main atrium area, including bushranger outlaw Ned Kelly's armor.

Lovely building with remarkable exhibitions on the history of Melbourne.

This majestic building offers super fast WiFi, comfortable seats and plugs. Best place to study/read.

Fantastic classic building that has now been let down by overcrowding, dirty interior, uncomfortable seating, poor ventilation to accommodate the overcrowding, odorous decor, ridiculously slow internet speeds that don't even allow streaming video. Watching a training video or lecture is impossible.

Amazing looking reading room, but not as functional as I'd like. The chairs arent the slightest bit comfortable and neighbors can occupy all electrical outlets. Still, great location and beautiful architecture.

Very grand library. Great that they allow for visitors to take photo

Varied free exhibitions in an historic space. Helpful staff.

It's more like a museum than a library, and it's nice. I think it's great to be able to use these places for free. There's plenty of room to relax, there's also a cafe and a souvenir shop. I didn't know Melbourne's attractions. Be sure to visit Melbourne.

This is a beautiful historic icon of Melbourne. Also very quiet when you can find a table!!

A quiet oasis in the Melbourne CBD. Historic building with beautiful heritage features.

Great place to find a book you want but not the place to read it. Crowded at Times due to the university's around.

A beautiful library, though it looks amazingly old it has power outlets at most desks and lends itself incredibly well to studying!

Free WiFi. so good place to stop and rest
Same time update messages/chat on internet.

Excellent collection, expert staff and the Redmond Barry Reading Room is a stunning place to study.

One of my favourite places in Melbourne! A great place to write, read, research and soak up history. The staff are extremely knowledgeable and helpful. Definitely one of my happy places.

You can sense the special energy here - ah the empowerment of knowledge and desire of learning. I feel I am familiar with this group of people and willing to continuously be one of them. What a magnificent place to hang out when you want to have a fulfilling day alone- pick a book to read, visit a free exhibition, read the up-to-date newspaper and magazines or just work on your Instagram content for a couple of hours... all is free.

I love the Bio Cup Art series more than the coffee here though. :) #biocupartseries

Keep coming back when you feel you need food for your brain.

Definitely worth a visit! Great architecture and interesting exhibitions on display. What a great place to study!

Love love love this place, I wish I had more time to explore. Must visit!

Amazing arquitecture and best place to study. Big and with lots of books. Well located

Absolutely love the Hansen Hall - relatively quiet, natural lightings, drinks allowed, free and reliable WiFi, and plentiful of outlets to charge your laptop. Great for studying / working!

Note that you are not allowed to bring big backpack into the library. So don't plan to come here with your luggages!

Loved the atmosphere.Great place to check in for book lovers

This is a beautiful library. It is free entry, free fast WiFi and a quiet place to relax. On top of all of that the selection of books is endless.

I learned a lot of EPIC stuff here, did you know that 1 plus 1 is 2

the Fridge is a good place to concentrate your mind for studying. The atmosphere is chilly and nice but not over a long period of time since temperature goes down down under.

wifi is very flexible and free too, unless you're sitting on the 2nd floor or you're just in a really bad position

theres no toilet on the 2nd floor.

interior occupant size is quite similar with your typical urban library, which isn't really spacious considering many around the city comes crawling every 10am to this place. lots of cafe around which is quite nice if you need a cup of coffee, i'm just a student so I prefer a walk to Big W next street across while leaving my stuff in the library, which many people do so the spot remains occupied.

Absolutely beautiful. If you've never been before make sure to check out the tour

Ancient buildings and majestic domes. There are also high-quality and interesting exhibitions. It is worth spending an hour to stop

A gorgeous library with a quaint museum on the upper floors that give you a brief overview of the history of Melbourne and Victoria.

Great library, fairly comprehensive collection. It has free wi-fi and several quiet study rooms. Additionally, the La Trobe Reading is absolutely stunning, and most of the librarians are kind and very helpful. There's also always a free, temporary exhibition in the small gallery near the entrance, which is usually quite interesting.

Most beautiful library ive visited in my whole life

An exceptional library with good collection of books, week sorted. Also computer is available for students to complete assignments. A great place to study and do revision as well.

You can easily spend hours there. Some parts are closed due to works but still a beautiful place to visit. Have a variety of services from using PCs to playing game consoles etc. Dont hesitate to ask staff for anything you are looking for and they will be glad to help you out.

Just respect the people who are there to actually study or read and keep the voices down if you cant be silent for prolonged periods of time.

A great building because it's not just a library but there's also art galleries and they have free wifi too. And it's really nice to just sit on the grass in front of the library or we can play giants chess. And not forgetting the books! There's just so many of them! Lovin' it!

WiFi is egregiously slow and there are constantly no chairs available. Also, this library does not offer late night study hours.

Magnificent library, great architecture, treasure trove of art and history, helpful staff, endless resources. I could happily live here, forever...

Large areas of the library are closed & inaccessible at the moment. It gets busy & it not the quietest place to read or study. No lending of books. Free WiFi, sometimes the connection or speed is not great. Toilets are ok, not great. No drinks apart from water allowed inside, except they have a cafe selling tea, coffee, food etc inside & another cafe is attached to entrance on the other side, so this makes absolutely no sense. Don t see why a cup of tea/coffee is not allowed when in other libraries it is without any problem. The staff are also not very friendly. They stand around in random places staring at people whilst on their walkie-talkie as if the place is going to get bombed. It doesn t create a calm & relaxed environment conducive to study. You can book to use a pc for 30 mins for free, which is good. However when I was making a booking it gave a time when a computer would be free, I checked my phone to check the current time to make sure that the suggested booking time would be ok for me. A member of staff came up behind me without me knowing & pushed my hand out the way, clicked to accept the booking & said just accept it . I felt this was really inappropriate, because I was checking I could make that time before accepting & potentially blocking the pc from someone else s use for half an hour. But also because the staff member (who was also of the opposite gender) touched me without my consent & pushed my hand out the way. I was in the state library of Western Australia last week & even though they had a WiFi problem it was much better than the state library of Victoria.

Beautiful high European architecture and a great collection of not only books but also art and history.

If you're a tourist visiting Melbourne, I highly recommend going inside the library. Not only is it a beautiful building from the outside, it also features one of the most stunning interiors I've ever seen.

The biggest bookstore I have ever seen. It's a real national monument. There are always a lot of people.

My main reason to visit the library was to see the famed Ashes urn.

The library itself doesn t open until 10am. As I was waiting to go in there was a steady increase in people also wanting to visit the library.

There are two entrances to the exhibition, door 5 at the corner of La Trobe and Russell St. The other entrance, entrance 6, is in Russell St just down the hill a bit from La Trobe St.

The Ashes Urn exhibit is for a short time only and is due to close during February 2020.

Apart from being an extensive library, there are also quite a number of paintings, tapestries and photos to be viewed.

Taking photos is not discouraged but no flash photography is permitted.

Due to having a photo walk organised for this particular day I could only spend about an hour and a half viewing the exhibits but a return visit is on the cards.

Beautiful and interesting exhibitions for journalism students, so calm and helpful to study and not procrastinating :')

A place posh as. The La Trobe reading room on third floor has amazing scene, and I think it boosts my efficiency in studying. This place is usually pretty crowded though, so you may want to arrive earlier.

This is really amazing library with perfect environment and ambiance for you do research, study and discussion. They provide a high speed wifi and power point for your devices.
Very spacious and comfortable. Lockers are free for user.

It has everything, except for lending books, sort of... Computers, internet, games room, a museum, guided tours, restaurant, lockers. There is so much going on here. Historically beautiful. In my experience, books are lent by having a reserve where you can view the book for a short period of time. Most people aren't here to borrow books. The chess room is fun too. A gallery, it's an amazing place.

Thankyou to the volunteer Stephanie who just helped with my document. Great job

Truly beautiful building inside and out. Lots of interesting things to be found.

A pretty library indeed with two cafes, but the WiFi is consistently weak - came here for almost a week straight and it was never that powerful. Also, restrooms aren t the best but at least they have them.