The Melbourne Athenaeum Library will be closed for the holiday period from 4:00pm on Wednesday 18 December and will reopen at 10:00am on Tuesday 7 January.
No books will be due during this period but there will be a returns box available on the landing whenever the building is open. Ebooks will continue to be available during this period through OverDrive and the Libby app.
We wish all our members a very happy festive season.
Along with the construction of the new hall, the name of the institution was changed in 1972.
It is at this point that the institution went from being called the Melbourne Mechanics' Institute to the Melbourne Atheneaeum, although it remained the same organisation with the same purpose.
The change of name for the institution came about because there were a very large number of mechanics' institutes in Victoria at the time, and this would continue to grow for the rest of the century. Included in this number were the North Melbourne Mechanics' Institute, the South Melbourne Mechanics' Institute, and the West Melbourne Mechanics' Institute.
The name Athenaeum was chosen for aspirational reasons.
