The Mitchell Reading Room

The Mitchell Reading Room resides in the State Library of New South Wales, Sydney. The library is the oldest library in Australia, and in the mid-1880s, began to outgrow its premises. The Mitchell reading room was hence commissioned. The reading room is named after its first patron – David Scott Mitchell, who donated the base collection of 40,000 books, 300 pictures and about 1400 manuscript volumes.

I particularly like the multi-storied design, the high bookshelves and the skylights. Old-school and yet elegant and stately.

If you visit the library, there is a hallway on the second level from where you can photograph the reading room at leisure.