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Stanton Library Turns 60

Published on: March 2024

Record: HANSARD-1323879322-139125

Stanton Library Turns 60

Ms FELICITY WILSON (North Shore)

—Speaker, this year Stanton Library in North Sydney celebrated an important milestone reaching 60 years of service to the local community. The Stanton Library was named after the North Sydney Mayor James Street Stanton who was a champion for the establishment of free municipal libraries throughout the late 1930s. As Mayor from 1937 to 1939, Stanton advocated levying a special tax to subsidise the creation of local authority libraries in all suburbs. Sadly Stanton died in 1943 and never saw the vision of a North Sydney Library come to be. Three months after his death North Sydney Council voted to create a library and it was decided the Stanton Memorial Library would open as part of a new civic centre development. Stanton Library was officially opened in 1964 by the Governor of NSW Lieutenant-General Eric Woodward with an initial collection of 10,000 books and within two months 4,600 people had registered as borrowers and more than 17,000 loans were issued. Today however, nearly 550,000 physical and digital items are borrowed annually by 65,000 members, cementing its place in our local community as a true neighbourhood hub.