State Library Victoria under fire as leaked report exposes deep cultural decay

A leaked proposal for staff and service cuts has sparked outrage and revealed how Victoria’s leading cultural institution has strayed from its mission to preserve knowledge towards corporate vanity projects, writes Dr Rosemary Sorensen.

The author writes after a secret document was revealed to suggest cuts to staff and services Goose Cooke He made it very clear blue sky He believes in the role of the State Library of Victoria.

Cooke wrote:

‘The Victorian ALP government will proudly open the new #StateLibrary underground railway station with giant murals drawn from its collections, as clueless Library management has dismantled public services and failed to properly research, preserve and tell the stories of our past and present.’

This came after a report Age with Kerrie O’BrienOutlining a leaked proposal to reduce services as well as the number of librarians and other staff.

Flinders University academic Heather Robinson wrote: Speech:

‘To deprive Victorians of a fully functioning public library is to gamble not only with the state’s cultural heritage, but also with our community’s sense of inclusion, integrity and international reputation.’

It’s been a difficult time for the State Library of Victoria (SLV) began with the shock decision to cancel a workshop for young writers and the denial that this was censorship of writers supporting Palestine, when it clearly was and was proven to be so. Paul DuldigHe retired in August (was replaced by the deputy CEO, John Wicks) oversaw months of unrest and changes in the board and management.

In an interview with Australian Financial Review in June this year, the soon-to-be-retired SLV Chairman Christine Christian Cited as a reason for the scandalous intervention of the Board and the cancellation of the workshop, “The possibility of unaccompanied children being exposed to speech that can be considered hate speech”.

Christian is “outspoken” about this, the reporter said. When he goes on to talk about the board’s decision, he blames the people who filed the complaints, rather than seeing anything improper in the preemptive agreement about what professional writers can expose children to. “It may be considered hate speech”. Christian said board members said: “We reached out, tried to explain that this had nothing to do with censorship or restricting the rights of writers to express their views. We tried very hard. Unfortunately, this action was not widely understood.”

This is nonsense. It became perfectly understood by many that this perceived risk was troubling to the experienced writers contracted to host the workshops, and that this fear of hate speech was actually a way to ostracize anyone who publicly criticized Israel.

In this extraordinary interview, Christian continues:

“It seems like every week you pick up the newspaper and there’s a president or a board member of a cultural institution because of something or there’s been an explosion. It feels like… it feels like it’s a new world, a polarizing world to say the least, and the kind of world that was once unimaginable.”

“One way or another” It is a pathetic way of referring to the distress and despair expressed by many people about institutional cowardice in the face of relentless lobbying against witnessing genocide.

This new world that Christian speaks of is unimaginable unless you have read the vast and striking Holocaust literature that describes how a democratic country succumbed to the insane orders of an evil, authoritarian ruler.

You can’t even imagine this unless you value the historical information contained within a vital cultural institution called the library.

A. petition currently calling for SLV management and government ‘Withdraw the proposed changes and hold a public meeting where Victorians can have a say in how their libraries are managed’.

What should be discussed in such a meeting is as simple as the question: What is the use of the library? It appears that under current and recent leadership this cultural institution has a core function. includes “Programs, scholarships and advice for budding entrepreneurs”. Indeed, Christine Christian donated $2 million to the Library for this purpose.

StartSpaceThe company, founded with Christian’s money, offers a free membership to what it calls “coworking,” plus a $350 monthly membership, access to the “Loft,” which features conferencing and printing facilities as well as training programs and mentoring sessions. CEO at the time Kate Torney Announcing that it will open in March 2020 expression he underlined this “StartSpace operates solely to benefit the community and is not for profit.”.

Torney also mentioned this “Leading international professional services firm PwC” (the company signed a contract but failed to review Robodebt in 2017) was providing an educational program on a philanthropic basis at the time.

That is, when a company’s professional services are involved in illegal activities Robodebt Although the plan was acceptable, the writers who were contracted to run workshops for young people were not trusted to present their programs without violating the law, on the advice of the Christian-led Board.

Enterprise center at the end of October announced buyers One of the $10,000 scholarships donated by the library donor went to a designer ‘Modular, regenerative infrastructure that protects livestock and vineyards from extreme climate conditions’The other is to a company ‘uses artificial intelligence to personalize chemotherapy dose from routine CT scans’. Besides $10,000 ‘seed financing’buyers receive ‘bespoke business coaching’.

Acting CEO John Wicks described the scholarship winners as “scholars” and noted that three-quarters of these scholarship recipients are still operating and growing their businesses, winning awards and securing new investments.

Well done, but what does this have to do with the library? By allocating space for this in the building, by accepting money that appears to have been specifically given to fund this unrelated library function, SLV makes its principles and why it exists confusing – one might even say it sacrifices it.

Without the report, it is impossible to know why staff and service cuts were necessary and what this means for the future of the Library. How will the changes affect the mission? it was stated like this: ‘We are a free-access, public records library housing Victoria’s State Collection. ‘We enrich the cultural, educational, social and economic lives of all Victorians.’

Available Strategic Plan Covers the period from 2022 to 2026, but has a separate Participation Strategy 2020-2024 It contains five targets (apparently not updated since); the fifth of these ‘Founders from all walks of life are supported to build sustainable startups’.

As the proposed changes are (hopefully) publicly debated by the Board and executive, as well as the State Government for which it is responsible, it will be useful to hear how and why such an objective has been prioritized by a library as old and admired as SLV.

The Victorian ALP government will proudly open the new #StateLibrary underground railway station with giant murals drawn from its collections, as clueless Library management has dismantled public services and failed to properly research, preserve and tell the stories of our past and present. #fiasco

— Kaz Cooke (@kazcooke.bsky.social) 28 November 2025, 11:42

Dr Rosemary Sorensen IA is a columnist, journalist and founder of the Bendigo Writers Festival.

Support independent journalism Subscribe to IA.