Major events in histories of public institutions – museums, galleries, libraries and universities – lend themselves to publications that acknowledge and celebrate openings, building extension projects and anniversaries. This year marks the sesquicentenary of the State Library of Victoria (SLV), which, with the completion of its massive building extension project in 2003, is now able to present a souvenir book on the collections. While this is in no manner a catalogue of the library’s collection, it does serve as a guide and as a useful primary source for seeking the more unusual items – the treasures.

For many, it may appear strange that the larger proportion of works illustrated as SLV ‘treasures’ are not books but works of art, history and documentary photographs. Indeed, it is these normally hidden riches that enhance one’s enjoyment of the book. The treasures are separated into ten categories: two on books, and the remaining eight on Victoria, gold, Ned Kelly, photographs, Melbourne style, the arts, botany and sport. Predictably, Ned Kelly features with illustrations of his armour, the Jerilderie letter and his death mask. Other Melbourne obsessions – football, horse racing, theatre, shopping, eating and fashion - are neatly covered, if sometimes too briefly. The compilers have clearly had fun selecting the images and demonstrating the wide range of the holdings with a combination of seriousness and wit. Wolfgang Sievers’s 1965 lacquered glamour and smoking chic of the denizens of the Menzies Hotel cocktail lounge is every bit as fascinating a document as Robert Hoddle’s surveying chain for Melbourne from the 1830s. The cultural diversity of the collection is demonstrated in a double spread in which Marc Chagall’s Dessins pour la Bible must compete with a facing page of eight comic covers. Fortunately, most of the juxtapositions of images are less jarring.