Kate Torney's new challenge: why the state library matters for Victoria

Many were surprised at Kate Torney’s announcement that she was leaving her position as the head of news at the ABC, for the role of CEO of the State Library of Victoria.

But whatever her reasons for the move, it would be a mistake to underestimate the importance of the library to Melburnians and also what an important job lies in wait for Torney.

The State Library has an imposing facade not dissimilar to those of other great public libraries such as the New York public library. But as long as you pass the bag check test, it’s a place that feels as if it belongs to the people of the city.

Perched on the northern edge of the central business district, it is distinct from the surrounding jumble of Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology buildings, which are mostly modern and bright. In contrast, the State Library, which opened in 1856, is spacious and grand, with a a shady veranda and lawns that roll down to Swanston Street. Generations of students and office workers have lunched in its forecourt on sunny days or sought shelter under its cool stone dome during heatwaves.

Inside, it’s cool and welcoming. The jewel in the crown is the domed reading room, the biggest in the world at the time it was built. It’s a lovely, light octagonal space, designed to hold a million books and 600 readers.

I’ve only ever seen it bursting around exam times but it always has a sense of being steadily used – one of the peaceful places in the city that you can always rely on.

Books have been birthed there. Monkey Grip, Helen Garner’s famous ode to 1970s bohemian Melbourne, was penned under the dome of the reading room.

In an essay for Meanjin in 2002 she wrote, “It was the best fun I ever had, down there in the domed reading room of the State Library of Victoria in 1976, working with a pencil and an exercise book on one of those squeaking silky-oak swivel chairs. I’ll never be that innocent again.”

As well as the readers, researchers, the PhDs, the students, are the writers. The State Library has always been a place for writers, particularly novelists. It’s a place to write for those who lack a room of one’s own, all the new writers, the next generation of Garners at the start of something – coming from their share houses or small apartments. It doesn’t ask anything of you – you don’t need a publishing contract or a big name or even a big idea. You can start small. It’s a quiet, pleasant, yet serious place where you can try and get the words down in peace.

From now on Torney will have a duty of care to all of us: the budding writers, the readers, the students, the workers who want to sit somewhere quietly in their lunchbreak.

She may also find it a surprisingly political role. The State Library of New South Wales faced anger from many of Australia’s most prominent writers last year when it proposed changes to the Mitchell Library. Books and librarians were to make way for more wi-fi and “casual public spaces”, and there was mild uproar. Libraries – despite their sedate reputation – are changing, and that change may involve a fight. Torney will have plenty of interesting challenges ahead of her.