Five prominent Australians - all with a love of words and a pretty good social media following to boot - have been selected as ambassadors to help the National Library of Australia celebrate its 50th birthday.
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It's nearly 50 years Prime Minister John Gorton officially opened the National Library of Australia's building in Canberra on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin on August 15, 1968.
To mark the anniversary, the library announced on Friday it was establishing an ambassadors' program to raise awareness of the institution and help all Australians grow closer to it.
Those selected are, among other things, all authors- Kaz Cooke, Benjamin Law, Dr Anita Heiss, Garth Nix and Peter FitzSimons.
Council chair Ryan Stokes said the library collected stories which helped to "define who we are" and the ambassadors would help tell those stories "in their own voice".
"We know that while four out of five Australians have heard of the National Library of Australia, many still don't know or appreciate that our collection holds stories that resonate in their own life," he said.
"Our ambassadors will help share our stories on their social networks; they'll help spread the word."
While the building is from last century, the promotion of the library is very much about modern techniques, turning to Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
The ambassadors will use their social media platforms to share information about the library and their connection to it.
"There will be tweetery," Cooke promised.
The collection of the library is valued at $1.5 billion comprising 10 million physical items and six million gigabytes of digital material.
Author Garth Nix grew up in Canberra and has a vague memory of being at the library opening as a five-year-old.
"I love libraries in general and this is the library," he said. "It's the most important and significant library in Australia. It collects knowledge and information and things of cultural importance from all over the country. It's a treasure house, that's how I think of it," he said.
Cooke, a cartoonist and author of Up the Duff and Girl Stuff, was her humorous self but also awed by the sheer scale of the library's collection.
"I have always wanted to be an ambassador. I was hoping for a uniform with epaulettes. I've been sadly let down but, no, it's been wonderful," she said, with a laugh.
"I think one of the highlights from me today was going below stairs or back stage, if you like, to see the conservationists in preservation.
"For me, there is something rather splendid about the equal reverence shown for Captain Cook's diary that we've seen and also there's a beautiful collage done by people who gave evidence royal commission into the sexual abuse of children."
The authors were also a fan of the library's online information service, Trove, and it's ability to lead from one gem to the next.
"I was in Trove for about three years. I'm in a Trove recovery program," Cooke joked.
Benjamin Law, a TV screenwriter and columnist, who wrote The Family Law , now a major SBS TV series, said the library was a way for Australia to tell the full breadth of its stories. He, too, was blown away by seeing the journal of the H.M.S Endeavour, regarded as the most valuable book in Australia, alongside William Yang's photographs of the Mardi Gras.
"It's an unusual mix but that's who we are," he said.
The other ambassadors are author and indigenous literature expert Dr Anita Heiss travels and commentator Peter FitzSimons, who is also the chair of the Australian Republican Movement.
The new ambassadors also took in the library's current exhibition, 1968: Changing Times, reflecting on a significant year, not only for the library but for world and national events.
The exhibition is open until August 12.
