State Library of New South Wales

The State Library of New South Wales, part of which is known as the Mitchell Library, is a large heritage-listed special collections, reference and research library open to the public and is one of the oldest libraries in Australia. Established in 1869 its collections date back to the Australian Subscription Library established in the colony of New South Wales (now a state of Australia) in 1826. The library is located on the corner of Macquarie Street and Shakespeare Place, in the Sydney central business district adjacent to the Domain and the Royal Botanic Gardens, in the City of Sydney. The library is a member of the National and State Libraries Australia (NSLA) consortium.

The Mitchell Wing of the State Library of New South Wales building was designed by Walter Liberty Vernon, assisted by H. C. L. Anderson and was built from 1905 to 1910, with further additions by Howie Bros in 1939; by FWC Powell & Sons in 1959; and by Mellocco Bros in 1964. The property was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999. Work began on the Macquarie Street Wing in 1983 and it was opened in 1988.

The State Reference Library contains a comprehensive and diverse collection of Australian and international research material. The collections grow through purchase, donation, transfer and legal deposit for all books published in New South Wales. A number of specialist services are located within the State Reference Library, including the legal information service established in 1990, a drug and alcohol information service and a family history research service.

The library contains over 6 million items including more than 2 million books, 1.2 million microforms, 2 million photographs, as well as newspapers, maps, architectural plans, manuscripts and other items. It is part of the PANDORA web archiving project of the National Library of Australia and also collects born digital material.

As well as being a general purpose reference and research library, it contains many historically significant collections including material dating from the European colonisation of Australia. These are held in the Australiana research collections known as the Mitchell Library (named for David Scott Mitchell, first collector of Australiana) and the Dixson Library (named after Sir William Dixson).

The library has been continuously adding to its collections since 1826 and holds collections of manuscripts, books, artworks, photography and artefacts of national and international significance. These include:

Computer cataloguing commenced in the early 1980s for books, and in 1992 for pictures and manuscripts. A large cataloguing backlog of material without an electronic record prompted the library's successful 2008 application for government funding to create over one million electronic catalogue records. The library subscribes to electronic databases which are accessible for cardholders via the catalogue. The digitisation of the papers of Sir Joseph Banks, completed in 1997, was the first digitisation project of original manuscripts undertaken by the library. It was followed by further digitisation of manuscript and picture collections including the papers of Matthew Flinders, the Hood collection of photographs by Sam Hood and son Ted Hood, and the Holtermann Collection of images of the NSW goldfields of the 1860s and 1870s, which is now listed on the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Register. Digitised images of items from the library's collection are available in the catalogue, and some are also available through thematic online exhibitions. In 2012 the library received State Government funding to digitise 12 million pages from its collection, including newspapers, manuscripts, pictures and books.

In Australia, legal deposit legislation exists at the national and state levels to support the provision of access to Australian research, heritage and culture. The Copyright Act 1968 governs legal deposit requirements at a national level. In New South Wales, legal deposit is required under the New South Wales Copyright Act 1879–1952, ss 5–7. The State Library of New South Wales, along with New South Wales Parliamentary Library and University of Sydney Library are entitled to "receive a copy of every book first published in New South Wales within two months of publication. 'Book' is defined in the Act as any book, newspaper, pamphlet, leaflet, music, map, chart or plan separately published and 'bound', sewed or stitched together'."