Libraries are long renowned for having hidden gems tucked away in the darkest reaches of their dusty shelves, but there’s a strong chance you never thought you’d be finding some of Australia’s best vinyl tucked away.

As The Age reports, from November 19th, the State Library Of Victoria are opening their doors and exhibiting some of the gems from their vast collection of vinyl for Melbourne Music Week.

The State Library’s collection of records started with 78rpm records in the 1930’s, before expanding to 33rpm and 45rpm records as their popularity increased. With the advent of digital recording, CDs, and streaming, the library’s collection started to dwindle.

However, their collection has more than doubled to 60,000 in the last 5 years thanks to the ABC who donated 32,000 singles and 6,000 albums.

To properly celebrate the library’s collection, they’ll be holding ‘Vinyl From The Vault’ day, in which there’ll be a presentation of the ‘best, worst, and weirdest’ in the State Library’s collection.

Highlights of the collection may include some Australian classic’s such as Men At Work’s Business As Usual, or Australian Crawl’s Sirocco, while there are plenty of novelty records on display, such as Harmonica Favourites by The Dargies.

If you can’t make it on down to the State Library Of Victoria for this event, don’t worry, because you can request to listen to any of the albums in the collection on-site whenever you may be able to pay them a visit.

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