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In the spotlight

Selected titles shortlisted for the 2025 Prime Minister's Literary Awards

In conversation: 2025 Prime Minister's Literary Awards

30 Sep 2025

Who will be the winners of the 2025 Prime Minister's Literary Awards?

Event

Books and authors

Author talk

Assistance animals welcome

Hearing induction loop

Wheelchair accessible

Film poster for Brazen Hussies featuring a woman, yellow background and women's protestors, with pink and purple protest graphics

Brazen Hussies documentary film poster, and cover image, Unfinished Revolution by Virginia Haussegger, 2025 (detail)

Brazen Hussies: Then and now

02 Oct 2025

Reflect on the women's liberation movement of the 1970s and examine what feminist activism looks like today.

*Tickets to attend in-person have sold out*

Event

Film screening

Talks and ideas

Panel discussion

Assistance animals welcome

Hearing induction loop

Wheelchair accessible

A. de Paszthory, Portrait of Nellie Stewart as Rosalind in As You Like It, oil on canvas, 1904, https://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn3022148; Broadside advertising George Musgrove’s As You Like It, Princess Theatre, Melbourne, Melbourne: Troedel, 1903, https://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn107848

Shakespeare on the move: Gold rush to Great War

18 Nov 2025

Join us for the third illustrated Shakespeare lecture and discover the objects and stories that reveal how Shakespeare made landfall in Australia.

Event

Talks and ideas

Assistance animals welcome

Hearing induction loop

Wheelchair accessible

Title page of a landscape oriented printed book: ornate engraving featuring musical performers. Scene is framed by theatre curtains.

James Hook, Guida di Musica: Being a Complete Book of Instructions for Beginners on the Harpsichord or Piano Forte, nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn8650184

The Excellencies of Musick: Highlights from the Jamie and Michael Kassler Collection

03 Dec 2024 - 24 Aug 2025

Enter the musical world of seventeenth and early nineteenth century Britain with rare prints, books and manuscripts.

Exhibition

Treasures Gallery

Assistance animals welcome

Wheelchair accessible

Four framed pictures hanging on a wall that has an image of an island on it.

Mabo v Queensland (No. 2): 30th Anniversary

Daily

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Mabo decision, the Library invited Gail Mabo, Eddie’s daughter, to select material for display to mark this landmark moment in Australian legal history.

Exhibition

First Australians

Treasures Gallery

Assistance animals welcome

Wheelchair accessible