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Steps to greater knowledge.
These stairs lead to the upper levels of the oldest library in Australia.
The Mitchell Library was established in 1826 in what was then the fledgling colony of NSW.
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
The Mitchell Library is one of Europe’s largest public libraries with over one million items of stock and is the hub of a city-wide information service. With its distinctive green dome, the building has been one of the city’s iconic landmarks since it opened in 1911 and is also home to The Mitchell Theatre, an exhibition hall and the Herald Café Bar.
traffic moving freely on the M8 as the statue Minerva (the Roman goddess of wisdom) looks on from atop the Mitchell Library
Charing Cross - October 2016
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. It is the oldest library in Australia, being the first established in New South Wales in 1826. (Google Description)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The library, based in the Charing Cross district, was initially established in Ingram Street in 1877 following a bequest from Stephen Mitchell, a wealthy tobacco producer, whose company, Stephen Mitchell & Son, would become one of the constituent members of the Imperial Tobacco Company. Part of the original collection came from a purchase in 1874 by Glasgow Corporation of 1800 early books gifted to Glasgow University from the Glasgow philanthropist William Euing.
The library contains a large public reference library, with 1,213,000 volumes. While composed mainly of reference material it also has a substantial lending facility which began in 2005. The North Street building, with its distinctive copper dome surmounted by Thomas Clapperton's bronze statue entitled Literature (often referred to as Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom) opened in 1911. The architectural competition for the library was held in 1906 and was won by William B. Whitie. The Edwardian Baroque building is protected as a category B listed building.
The vast majority of the library's collection however is housed in the Extension Building, which was built between 1972 and 1980. Located to the west of the original building it occupies the site of the famed St Andrew's Halls, which were designed by James Sellars and opened in 1877. Acquired by Glasgow Corporation in 1890 it was Scotland`s pre-eminent venue for concerts and meetings. It had a massive and striking classical facade and included a Grand Hall which could hold 4,500 people, two Lesser Halls, further small halls and a large ballroom. The building was gutted by fire in 1962, although the facade survived and was later incorporated into the 1980 extension of the Mitchell Library, with the principal entrance now being in Granville Street.
As part of a major internal refurbishment in 2005, the ground floor of the extension was recreated as an internal street running east to west. A stylish new cafe bar has been incorporated with a large learning centre offering free Internet and Wifi access. A new business lounge and a popular lending library have also been created.
Containing five floors, access is freely open to the public, whether library borrowing members or non-members. Non-members can, upon request, use PCs and the Internet as well as printed reference materials.
The Mitchell Library also holds the Glasgow City Archives and collections which are considered to be one of the world’s best resources for researching family history and are much used in the television series Who Do You Think You Are?.
The Mitchell is also a venue centre offering the hire and use of the Edwardian Hall, linked rooms in the North Street building, Mitchell Theatre and breakout rooms in the Granville Street extension, for conferences, banquets, exhibitions and meetings.
Mitchell Library
"TIME IS AN ARTIST AND AS LONG AS PEOPLE CONTINUE TO SEEK OUT THE ROMANTIC, THE WEE TRAIN WILL CONTINUE TO ENCHANT GENERATIONS OF TRAVELLERS,"
The World Press Photo exhibition is on for the next couple of months at the Mitchell Library, the big sandstone monolith at the corner of Sydney's Macquarie St and Sir John Young Crescent. This is the reading room!
The Mitchell Library takes its name from David Mitchell, a lifelong book collector, who in 1898 offered to bequeath his priceless collection of Australiana to the library trustees, which they received on his passing in 1907 with a £70,000 endowment for its maintenance.
Mitchell was one of the first undergraduates of the University of Sydney, winning scholarships in mathematics, and was admitted to the Bar in 1858 although he never practised. Money from his father's estate enabled him to buy a seven room house for £5,000 at 17 Darlinghurst Road (next to Llankelly Place in Kings Cross) in 1871, the same year as the death of his mother. Although considered a 'witty and wise' conversationalist he was unmarried and a voracious reader with an obsession to 'gather a copy of every document related to Australia'. This amassed '30,000 volumes, prints, engravings and pictures...to enable future historians to write the history of Australia in general, and New South Wales in particular.' The collection was his legacy.
He was a man of independent means as his father, James Mitchell, had been a surgeon who served in the Napoleonic wars before being posted to Sydney Hospital in 1823. Continuing to practice, he invested in Hunter Valley properties including the Burwood and Rothbury estates, operating small coal mines with James and Alexander Brown, among others, who he had brought with him to the colony. A respected businessman, he was a foundation member of the Sydney Banking Co., served in the 1840s as a director of the Hunter River Steam Navigation Co. and became chairman of the Australian Gaslight Co (AGL). He had a long association with the Australian Subscription Library, now the State Library of New South Wales, initially as a committeeman and later chairman, a position he held when he passed in 1869.
James Mitchell's will was contested by the family. In 1865 he had fallen under the influence of a confidence man, William Wolfskehl. Mitchell was Wolfskehl's guarantor for a smelting operation, but when the company failed Mitchell had to pay Wolfskehl's share. However, when Mitchell died in 1869, a will made just before his death named Wolfskehl sole executor of his estate. The Mitchell family contested the will in the Supreme Court claiming undue influence, eventually upheld in favour of an earlier will.
Library in Glasgow (the largest public reference library in Europe, also the world's best resources for researching family history).
© All Rights Reserved
View this panorama in our panorama viewer: dxlab.sl.nsw.gov.au/pano-scope/view.php?p=51
Call number: V1 / Lib / Mit / 2
Digital ID: a1528217
Format: Gelatin silver photoprint
Find more detailed information about this photograph: acmssearch.sl.nsw.gov.au/search/itemDetailPaged.cgi?itemI...
Search for more great images in the State Library's collections: acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/search/SimpleSearch.aspx
From the collection of the State Library of New South Wales www.sl.nsw.gov.au
David Scott Mitchell (1836-1907) was an avid collector of Australiana. In 1898 Mitchell agreed to bequeath his collection to the state of NSW provided that the government constructed a new Library building to house it. His gift is perhaps one of the greatest acts of benefaction ever seen in Australia. The Mitchell Library was officially opened on 8 March 1910, and opened to the public the next day, 9 March.
www.onehundred.sl.nsw.gov.au/100-years/DS-Mitchell-and-th...
Format: Photograph
Notes: Find more detailed information about this photographic collection: acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/item/itemDetailPaged.aspx?itemID=422391
Search for more great images in the State Library's collections: acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/search/SimpleSearch.aspx
From the collection of the State Library of New South Wales www.sl.nsw.gov.au
The Atlantid Entrance to James Sellars' St Andrew's Halls of 1877.
The halls were destroyed by fire in 1962 and this is now the façade of the Mitchell Library's 1980s extension. Recently restored, but still bird wires everywhere.
The State Library of New South Wales (also known as the Mitchell Library) contains many historically significant collections dating from the European colonisation of Australia, including accounts from Australian explorers and other pioneers, paintings and sketches, and many other historical records. (Wikipedia)
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I've wanted to do a photographic project/study of the Mitchell Library for years. It's a fascinating building and the interior is decorated with such a mish-mash of styles from various decades. The visitors that populate the library are also pretty varied and interesting. Maybe one day I'll get around to starting the project, for now here's a shot I took while on my way to browse through the photography books.
FULL ZOOM VIEWER
drive.google.com/file/d/0BxEdtYPaohtbSFNqQngtc2RpbW8/view...
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IMAGE INFO
- Photographer's viewpoint is facing east-north-east along Parramatta Road, toward the iconic art-deco styled Four Ways Car Service station.
- The deco-styled clock shows the time as 4.23 PM.
- An extract from a report on page 4 of the Construction (Sydney) newspaper, dated 17 Aug 1938, notes "the awning, tower and moulded fascia are all carried out with Hardie's "Fibrolite" Asbestos Cement Sheets. The curved sheets for the awning are butt jointed and pointed with mastic, while the tower sections have flush over-lapping joints, the top section being in one hollow base and fitted as a weather-proof "hat.""
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SOURCE INFO
- One copy of a glass plate negative from the Arthur Ernest Foster Collection.
- The original was digitized by the State Library of New South Wales
- The digitized original is available from the SLNSW online collection here: digital.sl.nsw.gov.au/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps...
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CREDITS
- Photographer Arthur Ernest Foster for the original glass plate negative.
- Mitchell & State Libraries of New South Wales for their valuable work in digitizing, archiving & making available online this rare historical content.
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COPYRIGHT STATUS
- Per SLNSW advice:
Out of copyright: created before 1955
- Regarding my own work in creating this unique cropped, restored & duo-toned version from the digitized original, I have applied "Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike".
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PROCESS INFO
- I downloaded a copy of the digitized original glass plate negative (badly faded with some emulsion damage & uneven exposure).
- Using Adobe Photoshop Creative Suite 8.0, I cropped the image, enlarged by 82% , adjusted areas of uneven exposure, restored contrast & sharpness & used a dark sepia duo-tone curve for better tonal range.
IMAGE INFO
- Photographer's viewpoint is looking east from an elevated position in Belmore Road west of Beach Street.
- The Pier is not yet completed due to numerous construction delays & disputes between the developer (Coogee Oceanic Pier Co. Ltd.) & Randwick Council.
- The crowd was smaller than expected for the Saturday 2 p.m. opening time but built up through the afternoon.
- A report in the Newcastle Morning Herald dated Monday 12 November 1928 claims "After being under construction for many months, portion of the Coogee ocean pier was opened on Saturday afternoon in the presence of what was claimed to be a record crowd. The pier was thronged at night by crowds until a late hour".
- Extracts from a report in the Labor Daily (Sydney) dated Monday 12 November 1928, page 4, included "The structure includes a soda refreshment salon and soda fountains on two floors", "Over 11,000 people visited the pier on Saturday and a further 7,000 yesterday". However, interest waned rapidly after that weekend to the point where the business soon became economically non-viable.
- Coogee Ocean Pier Co. had been granted a 28 year lease. It stretched 180 meters out across the middle of Coogee Beach & well into Coogee Bay (originally it was meant to extend 250 meters). It boasted to have a capacity for 21,000 people, including a 1,400 seat theatre (but this was never built) as well as numerous restaurants (never built), a dance hall for 600 people (never built) plus a variety of shops & arcades (also never built). The funding crisis that had befallen the Company halfway through the build virtually guaranteed the Pier would have a very short existence (since it now had almost none of it's advertised main attractions).
- One year after this photo, on 16 November 1929 the adjacent Coogee Beach featured a large safe beach swimming & bathing area, protected by steel mesh shark-proof nets supported from pylons next to the Pier. Ironically, this would have attracted even more people away from the Pier, to the pleasure of bathing within the shark-proof enclosure (with night bathing following soon after) at a cost of only 1 d per person. By comparison the entry fees to the Pier were:
Monday-Friday - Adults = 3 d.
Sat, Sun & Public Holidays - Adults = 6 d.
Children = 3 d. at all times.
- The Pier was for a very short time a truly desirable tourist & pleasure-seekers facility, that helped promote Coogee as a major resort destination, similar to Brighton in England. It even had a "Coogee Pier Golf Course" which was constructed on the northern side & extending for half it's length that opened on 1 November 1930!
- However, unlike the calmer waters at Brighton, the incessant pounding, powerful surf that regularly smashed into the pier with every south-easterly "blow" was unrelenting. Sadly for many Sydneysiders, Randwick Council & the Pier's management inevitably capitulated in the face of mounting & un-economical repair costs (repairs alone estimated at £4,000 in May 1933 (over $480,00 today).
- Indeed, by as far back as January 1930, the developers had already sunk £78,300 into the project - around $7,000,000 in todays money - unsuprisingly, they never made any profit during the short life of the project).
- Unsurprisingly then, with mounting financial losses over the period 1931-1933 the by-now-derelict pier remains were sold off for a relatively paltry £2,800 (around $230,000 today) & was finally demolished during the period December 1933-March 1934.
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SOURCE INFO
- One copy of a 15 x 20 cm photo-print from the Hood Collection.
- The original was digitized by the State Library of New South Wales
- The digitized original is available from the SLNSW online collection here: digital.sl.nsw.gov.au/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps...
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CREDITS
- Photographer Sam Hood for the original photo & print.
- Mitchell & State Libraries of New South Wales for their valuable work in digitizing, archiving & making available online this rare historical content.
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COPYRIGHT STATUS
- Per SLNSW advice:
Out of copyright: created before 1955
- Regarding my own work in creating this unique cropped, restored & duo-toned version from the digitized original, I have applied "Attribution-Share Alike".
*******************************
PROCESS INFO
- I downloaded a copy of the digitized original (very badly faded with uneven exposure).
- Latest version enlarged & enhanced using topaz Gigapixel AI, Skylum Luminar Neo AI & Adobe Photoshop CS2.
Sculptor: William Mossman Junior, 1878, sandstone.
The Mossman family dominated sculpture in Glasgow during the Victorian period. William Mossman (1824-84) studied under his father, William Mossman Senior (1793-1851), and also under Baron Carlo Marochetti.
The old and young giants stand sentry at the entrance of the Greek Revival St Andrew's Halls (Architect: James Sellars), used now as the main entrance to the Mitchell Library.
The façade has recently emerged from scaffolding after major restoration.
The Atlantid Entrance to James Sellars' St Andrew's Halls of 1877.
The halls were destroyed by fire in 1962 and this is now the façade of the Mitchell Library's 1980s extension. Recently restored, but still bird wires everywhere.
Cast iron lamps on James Sellars' St Andrew's Halls of 1877.
The halls were destroyed by fire in 1962 and this is now the façade of the Mitchell Library's 1980s extension. Recently restored.
- SLNSW Flickr page image is here www.flickr.com/photos/statelibraryofnsw/31538708464
- You can also see the original very high resolution digitized image held at the SLNSW, using their wonderful panorama viewer here dxlab.sl.nsw.gov.au/pano-scope/view.php?p=40&fr=9999
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IMAGE INFORMATION
- Panoramic view is centered looking east-south-east from the upper balcony of the Cecil Hotel.
- I have re-dated this image to specifically between July-October 1921 (rather than the SLNSW's guess-timate of 1930) because of the following researched facts:
(a) The Cronulla Beach sea wall commenced construction in October 1921. Clearly, there is no sea wall construction visible in the image!
(b) The large art-deco concrete main change rooms seen today were commenced in circa 1922, when the sea wall was completed. Again, they are nowhere to be seen. These two facts alone rule out a photo date any later than October 1921.
(c) The sign for HART'S CAFE & DINING ROOM is clearly seen in Gerrale Street. Newspaper advertisements for the cafe first began to appear in July 1921. So the rationale is that the date must logically be sometime between when the HART'S CAFE newspaper ads first appear & the commencement of the massive sea wall beach re-construction.
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IMAGE SOURCE & CREDITS
- Credits go to:
(a) the photographer Milton Kent, for his wonderful & historic original nitrate photonegative.
- the Mitchell & State Libraries of New South Wales for their valuable work in digitizing & archiving these great historical records & making the digitized images freely available in both their Pano viewer & on their Flickr page.
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COPYRIGHT STATUS
- The original image is no longer restricted by any form of Copyright, per the State Library of New South Wales Flickr page advice -
"No Known Copyright Restriction"
- As for my own work in creating a substantially re-worked & restored duotone version of this rare & unique historical image & uploading it to Flickr for education & review, I have applied Creative Commons "Attribution-NonCommercial- ShareAlike" copyright.
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PROCESS INFO
- I downloaded a full size copy of the original panorama from the SLNSW's Flickr page.
- Using Adobe Photoshop Creative Suite, I restored density, contrast, sharpness & spot repaired some badly over-exposed/underexposed sections & a lot of fine scratches, then applied a dark sepia duotone curve.
A good start to the day 📷 my picture the Mitchell Library in Glasgow being cleared has made picture of the day in The Herald 😄 #heraldglasgow #glasgowherald #pictureoftheday #pictureofday #fujifilmphotographer #fujifilmuk
#fujifilm
#fujifilmxseries #appicoftheweek #photography #glasgow #glasgowcity #glasgowcitycentre #mitchelllibrary #publiclibrary
David Scott Mitchell (1836-1907) was an avid collector of Australiana. In 1898 Mitchell agreed to bequeath his collection to the state of NSW provided that the government constructed a new Library building to house it. His gift is perhaps one of the greatest acts of benefaction ever seen in Australia. The Mitchell Library was officially opened on 8 March 1910, and opened to the public the next day, 9 March.
www.onehundred.sl.nsw.gov.au/100-years/DS-Mitchell-and-th...
Format: Photograph
Notes: Find more detailed information about this photographic collection: acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/item/itemDetailPaged.aspx?itemID=422391
Search for more great images in the State Library's collections: acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/search/SimpleSearch.aspx
From the collection of the State Library of New South Wales www.sl.nsw.gov.au
Format: Photograph
Find more detailed information about this photographic collection: acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/item/itemDetailPaged.aspx?itemID=52132
From the collection of the State Library of New South Wales : www.sl.nsw.gov.au/