SLV hosts World of the Book exhibition

State Library Victoria (SLV) has announced the 20th anniversary World of the Book exhibition, to open from 31 May 2025.

The exhibition will include three new artefacts, including a medieval scribal knife; the Hyakumantō Darani, a paper scroll produced in Japan over 1250 years ago; and a set of Chinese–English phrasebooks produced in 1862 during the Australian gold rush.

‘”World of the Book: The Rare, the Sacred and the Iconic” is refreshed each year to illuminate the treasured place of books in our hearts and minds through the extraordinary riches of the State Collection, from a cuneiform tablet dated to c. 2050 BCE to the modern books we read today,’ said the organisers.

To celebrate the 20 years the exhibition has run, twenty items from the original exhibition in 2005 will be on display. These items will include De institutione musica (The Principles of Music), which is the oldest book in Australia, and the Medici manuscript, which will display a never-before-seen page.

When discussing the Hyakumantō Darani, the principal collection curator Anna Welch said: ‘For the first time, the Library’s Rare Books Collection can tell the history of printed text from its origins in Asia, rather than from its European beginning. The history of the book is global and unites us as humans, as the Hyakumantō Darani demonstrates: it is a Buddhist Sanskrit text originating in India, printed in Japan in Chinese characters.’

Contemporary works in the showcase include a feature on the Treehouse series by Andy Griffiths and illustrated by Terry Denton. ‘It features sculptures made by Andy’s family as well as fan art and international translated editions of the popular series, which have been donated to the State Collection by Andy and Jill Griffiths,’ said organisers.

World of the Book opens on Saturday, 31 May in Dome Galleries, Level 4 and will be free to visit.

Category: Events Local news