We love a library – you can spend countless hours watching movies, reading books and listening music, all for free. Whether it's your local library, the State Library of NSW or State Library of Victoria, the trusty book repository is a brilliant public service.
But did you know you can also get a library card for the National Library of Australia? This giant temple to learning in Canberra allows any Australian resident to become a member – and you can apply online, without having to show a bill or prove a thing. All you have to do is sign up via the NLA's website, and the kind folks at the library will post you your very own library card.
Once your card arrives, you can use the number on it to access the NLA's vast collection of books, papers and e-resources. There are plenty of cool online resources, too. You can listen to interviews with people who lived through the Spanish influenza years of 1918-20 (extremely topical at present). Or you can use Trove, which gives you access to every Australian news website since 1996. You can also find published and unpublished sheet music, performances and recordings of all kinds of music. You can borrow e-books, research your family's genealogy or take a virtual look through the library's Treasures Gallery, which contains numerous artefacts from Australia's past.