SPECIAL PROJECTS
FOBL’s fundraising sponsors a variety projects which enhance Balmain Library’s shelves and enliven its environment.
THE CHILDREN’S ROOM
With one of its walls decorated by imaginative multi-coloured glass windows. These windows were donated by FOBL. They were designed in 2009 by the winner of a FOBL sponsored competition open to the students of the Sydney College of the Arts in Callan Park. |
NOBEL LITERATURE LAUREATES COLLECTION

At the end of 2010 FOBL decided to allocate funds to purchase and donate to Balmain Library a complete collection of books by Nobel Prize literature laureates. The project was completed in 2013, and launched November of the same year by the NSW State Librarian Dr Alex Byrne. We were delighted to hold the function in the Library by the specially built bookcase.
Pop in and borrow works by these great international authors from the inception of the prize in 1901.
BOOK BOOST
FOBL sponsors Book boosts, when funds are allocated for the purchase of books for the library. Held respectively in 2009, 2011 and 2013 these events have resulted in $30,000 worth of new books being added to the shelves of our library.
These books were selected by the citizens of Balmain themselves: on the occasion of each Book Boost the community was invited over a designated weekend to visit the library where hundreds and hundreds of new publications were displayed by our local partner bookshop Hill of Content. People could choose whatever they wanted, and the library staff catalogued their choices until the target dollar value was reached.
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