September 2025
September 2025Brazen Hussies: Then and now
Spend an evening in the company of trailblazing women who reshaped Australia’s social and political landscape.
Catherine Dwyer, Elizabeth Reid, and Biff Ward will sit down with Virginia Haussegger to discuss the evolution of feminism in Australia, and the making of the acclaimed documentary Brazen Hussies. A film screening follows the panel discussion.
2 October | 6pm | Theatre and online | Free entry | Bookings essential
Picturing beekeeping in Australia
Commissioned by the Library, new images document the important work of protecting bee colonies in regional New South Wales.
The NSW Department of Primary Industries hive inspections and varroa mite treatment work also includes educational outreach to support commercial and hobbyist beekeepers.
Over 50 images are now available online.
2025 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards
The Library will close at 5:00pm on Monday 29 September as we prepare to host this year’s awards.
The following day the winners will be in conversation with the artistic director of the Canberra Writers Festival.
Find out what it takes to write an award-winning book!
Tuesday 30 September | 6pm
Theatre | $15 |Bookings essential
Celebrating 50 years of Papua New Guinea’s independence
Join us for a community day at the National Archives, National Gallery and National Library.
New display: Remembering the war
On the 80th anniversary of the end of WWII, explore stories of the conflict from our collections, now on display in the Treasures Gallery.
Daily | 9am to 5pm
Treasures Gallery
Free entry | No bookings required
Australian artists in the Second World War
Some 1 million Australians served in the Second World War. Their experiences were documented in diaries, letters, newspaper reports, photographs and artworks.
Explore two examples of artistic responses to the war in this blog.
1975: Living in the Seventies now open
Look back on what it was like to live in the seventies. Were you Team Sherbet or Team Skyhooks?
Mapping the unknown
Join cartographic historian Chet Van Duzer to discuss early modern maps and the methods used by map makers to tell us about the accuracy of their maps.
Tuesday 14 October | 6pm
Theatre and online
Free entry | Bookings essential
Plant power
Gum blossoms that explode like grenades, flowers that thrive in scorching deserts and seeds that need smoke to live.
Tanya McCartney, author of NLA Publishing title Flora is here to let us know that Australia’s plants are totally hardcore.
Gorgeous books and royal annotations
Renowned scholar Professor Micheline White examined the marginalia left by King Henry VIII and his last wife, Katherine Parr, in their personal books.
The Man Who Planted Canberra: Charles Weston and His Three Million Trees
By Robert Macklin with Dr John Gray
Charles Weston was one of our most visionary designers of green landscapes and a true founding hero of the nation’s capital. He experimented and planted more than three million trees and shrubs from Australia and around the world to create the horticultural wonder of Canberra.
