The National Library of Australia (NLA), formerly the Commonwealth National Library and Commonwealth Parliament Library, is the largest

reference library A library is a collection of Book, books, and possibly other Document, materials and Media (communication), media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or electron ...

in Australia, responsible under the terms of the ''National Library Act 1960'' for "maintaining and developing a national collection of library material, including a comprehensive collection of library material relating to

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

and the

Australian people Australians, colloquially known as Aussies, are the citizens, nationals and individuals associated with the country of Australia. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or ethno-cultural. For most Australians, these connection ...

", thus functioning as a

national library A national library is a library established by a government as a country's preeminent repository of information. Unlike public library, public libraries, these rarely allow citizens to borrow books. Often, they include numerous rare, valuable, ...

. It is located in

Parkes Parkes may refer to: * Sir Henry Parkes (1815–1896), Australian politician, one of the earliest and most prominent advocates for Australian federation Named for Henry Parkes * Parkes, New South Wales, a regional town * Parkes Observatory, a radi ...

, Canberra, ACT. Created in 1960 by the ''National Library Act'', by the end of June 2019 its collection contained 7,717,579 items, with its manuscript material occupying of shelf space. The NLA also hosts and manages the

Trove Trove is an Australian online library database owned by the National Library of Australia in which it holds partnerships with source providers National and State Libraries Australia, an aggregator and service which includes full text documen ...

cultural heritage discovery service, which includes access to the

Australian Web Archive The Australian Web Archive (AWA) is a publicly available online database of archived Australian websites, hosted by the National Library of Australia (NLA) on its Trove platform, an online library database aggregator. It comprises the NLA's own ...

and

National edeposit National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, c ...

(NED), a large collection of digitised newspapers, official documents, manuscripts and images, as well as

born-digital The term born-digital refers to materials that originate in a Digital data, digital form.NDIIPP"Preserving Digital Culture,"Library of Congress. This is in contrast to digital reformatting, through which analog recording, analog materials become D ...

material.

History and foundation

In 1901 the Commonwealth Parliament Library was established to serve the newly formed Federal Parliament of Australia. From its inception the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library was driven to development of a truly national collection. In 1907 the Joint Parliamentary Library Committee under the Chairmanship of the Speaker, Sir

Frederick William Holder Sir Frederick William Holder (12 May 185023 July 1909) was an Australian politician who served as the first speaker of the Australian House of Representatives from 1901 to 1909. A member of the Free Trade Party and later an independent, he ser ...

defined the objective of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library in the following words:

The Library Committee is keeping before it the ideal of building up, for the time when Parliament shall be established in the Federal Capital, a great Public Library on the lines of the world-famed
Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...
at Washington; such a library, indeed, as shall be worthy of the Australian Nation; the home of the literature, not of a State, or of a period, but of the world, and of all time.

From 1923, two forms of name were used concurrently: Commonwealth National Library and Commonwealth Parliament Library, to designate the national and parliamentary collections respectively. In 1957 the Paton Committee recommended a National Library as an independent

statutory body A statutory body or statutory authority is a body set up by law (statute) that is authorised to implement certain legislation on behalf of the relevant country or state, sometimes by being Primary and secondary legislation, empowered or deleg ...

. In 1960 the National Library of Australia was created by the ''National Library Act 1960'', and each library became a separate entity.

Building

John Gorton opening the National Library

The original National Library building on

Kings Avenue, Canberra Kings Avenue is a road in Canberra which goes between New Parliament House (), across Lake Burley Griffin at the Kings Avenue Bridge (), to Russell near the Australian-American Monument. (). Route It begins at State Circle around Capital ...

was designed by

Edwin Hubert Henderson The National Library of Australia (NLA), formerly the Commonwealth National Library and Commonwealth Parliament Library, is the largest reference library in Australia, responsible under the terms of the ''National Library Act 1960'' for "mainta ...

(1885–1939), who was Chief Architect of the Commonwealth of Australia from 1929 to 1939, and built in 1934. Originally intended to be several wings, only one wing was completed, partly because of the advent of World War II. The 1957 Paton Committee reported that the accommodation was inadequate for a National Library. The building was used for the headquarters of the Canberra Public Library Service until its demolition in 1968, when it became the site of the Edmund Barton Building. In 1963, prime minister

Robert Menzies The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' () "fame, glory, honour, praise, reno ...

announced the near-completion of working plans for a new National Library building. The present library building was opened on 15 August 1968 by Prime Minister

John Gorton Sir John Grey Gorton (9 September 1911 – 19 May 2002) was an Australian politician, farmer and airman who served as the 19th Prime Minister of Australia, prime minister of Australia from 1968 to 1971. He held office as the leader of the leade ...

. The building, situated in

, was designed by the architectural firm of

Bunning and Madden Bunning and Madden is an Australian architectural firm, architecture and urban planning firm based in Canberra and Sydney. The firm was founded by Walter Bunning in 1945 in Sydney.Sydney: Self-published, 1970. Late Twentieth Century Stripped Classical style. The foyer is decorated in marble, with stained-glass windows by

Leonard French Leonard William French OBE (8 October 1928 – 10 January 2017) was an Australian artist, known principally for major stained glass works. French was born in Brunswick, Victoria to a family of Cornish origin. His stained glass creations inc ...

and three tapestries by

Mathieu Matégot Mathieu Matégot (4 April 1910 – February 2001) was a Hungarian / French designer and material artist. He was one of the most renowned French designers of the 1950s. Early years Matégot was born on 4 April 1910 at Tápió-Sully, a villa ...

. A Tom Bass sculpture called ''Lintel Sculpture'' is installed over the entrance to the library. The building was listed on the Australian

Commonwealth Heritage List The Commonwealth Heritage List is a heritage register established in 2003, which lists places under the control of the Australian government, on land or in waters directly owned by the Crown (in Australia, the Crown in right of the Commonwealt ...

on 22 June 2004. In 2004 the book ''A different view : the National Library of Australia and its building art'' was published which talked about the NLA building.

Reading rooms

The large National Library building is home to various reading rooms and collections. Usage of the reading rooms include speaking to expert staff, browsing the library's reference collection and electronic journals, ebooks, indexes, and databases. The reading rooms also provide free internet and computer use, scanning, photocopying and printing, and the request and access of collection items. On the ground floor is the Main Reading Room — this is where the bulk of the Library's Internet access terminals are located, and where wireless internet access is available. Services are also delivered on-site from the Newspaper & Family History zone on the ground floor, the Special Collections Reading Room and the Petherick Reading Room on the 1st floor, and Asian Collections on level 3.

Collections

Australian & General Collection

The library collects material produced by Australians, for Australians or about the Australian experience in all formats—not just printed works—books, serials, newspapers, maps, posters, music and printed

ephemera Ephemera are items which were not originally designed to be retained or preserved, but have been collected or retained. The word is etymologically derived from the Greek ephēmeros 'lasting only a day'. The word is both plural and singular. On ...

—but also online publications and unpublished material such as

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...

s, pictures and

oral histories Oral history is the collection and study of historical information from people, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews. These interviews are conducted with people who pa ...

Hazel de Berg Hazel Estelle de Berg (; 21 March 1913 – 3 February 1984) was an Australian pioneering oral historian and broadcaster who conducted recordings locally and abroad including the United Kingdom and United States. De Berg recorded her collections ...

began recording Australian writers, artists, musicians and others in the Arts community in 1957. She conducted nearly 1300 interviews. Together with the library, she was a pioneer in the field in Australia, working together for twenty-seven years. A core

Australiana Australiana is anything pertaining to Australian culture, society, geography and ecology, especially if it is endemic to Australia or has reached iconic status. It includes people, places, flora, fauna and events of Australian origins. Austr ...

collection is that of John A. Ferguson. The library's Australiana collections are the nation's most important resource of materials recording Australia's cultural heritage. The library has particular collection strengths in the

performing art The performing arts are arts such as music, dance, and drama which are performed for an audience. They are different from the visual arts, which involve the use of paint, canvas or various materials to create physical or static art objects. Pe ...

s, including dance. The library contains a considerable collection of general overseas and

rare book Rare may refer to: * Rare, a particular temperature of meat * Something infrequent or scarce, see Scarcity :* Rare species A rare species is a group of organisms that are very uncommon, scarce, or infrequently encountered. This designation may ...

materials, as well as world-class Asian and Pacific collections which augment the Australiana collections. The print collections are further supported by extensive

microform A microform is a scaled-down reproduction of a document, typically either photographic film or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about 4% or of the original d ...

holdings. The library also maintains the National Reserve

Braille Braille ( , ) is a Tactile alphabet, tactile writing system used by blindness, blind or visually impaired people. It can be read either on embossed paper or by using refreshable braille displays that connect to computers and smartphone device ...

Collection. As a national library, the NLA is required by

legal deposit Legal deposit is a legal requirement that a person or group submit copies of their publications to a repository, usually a library. The number of copies required varies from country to country. Typically, the national library is the primary reposit ...

provisions enshrined in the ''

Copyright Act 1968 The copyright law of Australia defines the legally enforceable rights of creators of creative and artistic works under Australian law. The scope of copyright in Australia is defined in the '' Copyright Act 1968'' (as amended), which applies the ...

'' to collect a copy of every Australian publication in the country, which publishers must submit upon publication of the material. At the end of the

Australian financial year A fiscal year (also known as a financial year, or sometimes budget year) is used in government accounting, which varies between countries, and for budget purposes. It is also used for financial reporting by businesses and other organizations. La ...

of 2018–19, the National Library collection comprised 7,717,579 items, and an additional of manuscript material. The library's collections of

have developed into the nation's single most important resource of materials recording the Australian cultural heritage.

Australian writers Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Aus ...

editors Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, or cinematic material used by a person or an entity to convey a message or information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation, organization, a ...

and

illustrators An illustrator is an artist who specializes in enhancing writing or elucidating concepts by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text or idea. The illustration may be intended to clarify complicated ...

are actively sought and well represented, whether published in Australia or overseas. The library's collection includes all formats of material, from books, journals, websites and manuscripts to pictures, photographs, maps, music, oral history recordings, manuscript papers and ephemera. With the assistance and support of library staff from London, New York City, and Jakarta, building various collections have been possible. Approximately 94.1% of the library's collection had been catalogued by July 2019, a total of 5,453,888 items and these are discoverable through the online catalogue.

Digital collections

The library is a world leader in

digital preservation In library science, library and archival science, digital preservation is a formal process to ensure that digital information of continuing value remains accessible and usable in the long term. It involves planning, resource allocation, and appli ...

techniques, and has maintained an Internet-accessible archive of selected Australian websites called the Pandora Archive since 1996. The

, released in March 2019, combines records from PANDORA, the

Australian Government Web Archive The Australian Web Archive (AWA) is a publicly available online database of archived Australian websites, hosted by the National Library of Australia (NLA) on its Trove platform, an online library database aggregator. It comprises the NLA's own P ...

(AGWA), and other websites published in Australia. In the 2019 federal budget, the government allocated million to the library, intended to be spread over four years to set up a digitisation fund. , the library had digitised a total of 5,508,008 images. Where possible, these are delivered directly across the Internet. Since a 2016 amendment to the ''Copyright Act'', all

content must also be deposited in the library (with varying provisions for state libraries as well). The NLA has since May 2019 hosted and managed the

(NED) service.

Libraries ACT A library is a collection of books, and possibly other materials and media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or digital (soft copies) materials, and may be a p ...

Libraries Tasmania Libraries Tasmania, formerly LINC Tasmania, is the Tasmanian state government-run organisation that operates libraries in Tasmania, including the state's reference library, a network of public lending libraries, archives, heritage, adult edu ...

Northern Territory Library Library & Archives NT is the "state" library and archives for the Northern Territory of Australia. It has three venues located in Darwin (on the ancestral lands of the Larrakia people) and Alice Springs (on the land of the Arrernte people). I ...

State Library of New South Wales The State Library of New South Wales, part of which is known as the Mitchell Library, is a large heritage-listed special collections, reference and research library open to the public and is one of the oldest libraries in Australia. Establis ...

State Library of Queensland State Library of Queensland (State Library) is the state public reference and research library of Queensland, Australia, operated by the Government of Queensland, state government. The Library is governed by the Library Board of Queensland, whi ...

State Library of South Australia The State Library of South Australia, or SLSA, formerly known as the Public Library of South Australia, located on North Terrace, Adelaide, is the official library of the Australian state of South Australia. It is the largest public research li ...

State Library Victoria State Library Victoria (SLV) is the state library of Victoria, Australia. Located in Melbourne, it was established in 1854 as the Melbourne Public Library, making it Australia's oldest public library and one of the first free libraries in th ...

and the

State Library of Western Australia The State Library of Western Australia is a research, education, reference and public lending library located in the Perth Cultural Centre in Perth, Western Australia. It is a portfolio agency of the Western Australia Department of Local Gover ...

are the member organisations of the collaboration.

Asian collections

The library houses the largest and most actively developing research resource on Asia in Australia, and the largest Asian language collections in the Southern hemisphere, with over half a million volumes in the collection, as well as extensive online and electronic resources. The library collects resources about all Asian countries in Western languages extensively, and resources in the following Asian languages:

Burmese Burmese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Myanmar, a country in Southeast Asia * Burmese people * Burmese language * Burmese alphabet * Burmese cuisine * Burmese culture Animals * Burmese cat * Burmese chicken * Burmese (horse), a ...

Chinese Chinese may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

Indonesian Indonesian is anything of, from, or related to Indonesia, an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. It may refer to: * Indonesians, citizens of Indonesia ** Native Indonesians, diverse groups of local inhabitants of the archipelago ** Indonesian ...

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

, Khmer,

Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, people from the Korean peninsula or of Korean descent * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Korean **Korean dialects **See also: North–South differences in t ...

, Lao,

Manchu The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic peoples, Tungusic East Asian people, East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized Ethnic minorities in China, ethnic minority in China and the people from wh ...

Mongolian Mongolian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Mongolia, a country in Asia * Mongolian people, or Mongols * Bogd Khanate of Mongolia, the government of Mongolia, 1911–1919 and 1921–1924 * Mongolian language * Mongolian alphabet * ...

, Thai,

Timor Timor (, , ) is an island at the southern end of Maritime Southeast Asia, in the north of the Timor Sea. The island is Indonesia–Timor-Leste border, divided between the sovereign states of Timor-Leste in the eastern part and Indonesia in the ...

ese, and

Vietnamese Vietnamese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia * Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam ** Overseas Vietnamese, Vietnamese people living outside Vietna ...

. The library has acquired a number of important Western and Asian language scholarly collections from researchers and bibliophiles. These collections include: * Australian Buddhist Library Collection *

Braga Braga (; ) is a cities of Portugal, city and a Municipalities of Portugal, municipality, capital of the northwestern Portugal, Portuguese Braga (district), district of Braga and of the historical and cultural Minho Province. Braga Municipality ...

Collection (Portuguese in Asia) * Claasz Collection (Sri Lanka) * Coedes Collection (Indo-China) *

London Missionary Society The London Missionary Society was an interdenominational evangelical missionary society formed in England in 1795 at the instigation of Welsh Congregationalist minister Edward Williams. It was largely Reformed tradition, Reformed in outlook, with ...

Collection (China) *

Luce Luce may refer to: People * Luce (name), as a given name and a surname * Luce (singer) Places * Luče, a town in Slovenia * Luce, Minnesota, an unincorporated community * Luce Bay, a large Bay in Wigtownshire in southern Scotland * Luce ...

Collection (Burma) *

McLaren McLaren Racing Limited ( ) is a British auto racing, motor racing team based at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, Surrey, England. The team is a subsidiary of the McLaren Group, which owns a majority of the team. McLaren is best known a ...

Human Humans (''Homo sapiens'') or modern humans are the most common and widespread species of primate, and the last surviving species of the genus ''Homo''. They are Hominidae, great apes characterized by their Prehistory of nakedness and clothing ...

Collection (Korea) * Otley Beyer Collection (Philippines) * Sakakibara Collection (Japan) *

Sang Ye Sang Ye (born 1955) is the pen name of Shen Dajun, a Chinese journalist, oral historian, and collector. He is the author of two oral histories, ''Chinese Lives: An Oral History of Contemporary China'' (co-authored with the novelist Zhang Xinxin (wri ...

Collection (China) *

Simon Simon may refer to: People * Simon (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name Simon * Simon (surname), including a list of people with the surname Simon * Eugène Simon, French naturalist and the genus ...

Collection (East Asia) * Harold S. Williams Collection (Japan) The Asian Collections are searchable via the National library's catalogue.

Pictures and manuscripts

The National Library holds an extensive collection of pictures and manuscripts. The manuscript collection contains about 26 million separate items, covering in excess of 10,492 metres of shelf space (ACA Australian Archival Statistics, 1998). The collection relates predominantly to Australia, but there are also important holdings relating to

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

and the

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the cont ...

. The collection also holds a number of European and Asian manuscript collections or single items have been received as part of formed book collections. The Australian manuscript collections date from the period of maritime exploration and settlement in the 18th century until the present, with the greatest area of strength dating from the 1890s onwards. The collection includes a large number of outstanding single items, such as the 14th century

Chertsey Chertsey is a town in the Borough of Runnymede, Surrey, England, southwest of central London. It grew up around Chertsey Abbey, founded in AD 666 by Earconwald, St Erkenwald, and gained a municipal charter, market charter from Henry I of Engla ...

Cartulary A cartulary or chartulary (; Latin: ''cartularium'' or ''chartularium''), also called ''pancarta'' or ''codex diplomaticus'', is a medieval manuscript volume or roll ('' rotulus'') containing transcriptions of original documents relating to the fo ...

, the journal of

James Cook Captain (Royal Navy), Captain James Cook (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer famous for his three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans, conducted between 176 ...

HM Bark Endeavour HMS ''Endeavour'' was a British Royal Navy research vessel that Lieutenant James Cook commanded to Tahiti, New Zealand and Australia on his first voyage of discovery from 1768 to 1771. She was launched in 1764 as the collier ''Earl of Pemb ...

, inscribed on the Memory of the World Register in 2001, the diaries of

Robert O'Hara Burke Robert O'Hara Burke (6 May 1821c. 28 June 1861) was an Irish soldier and police officer who achieved fame as an Australian explorer. He was the leader of the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition, which was the first expedition to cross Australi ...

and

William John Wills William John Wills (5 January 1834 – ) was a British surveyor who also trained as a surgeon. He was the second-in-command of the Burke and Wills expedition, which was the first expedition to cross Australia from south to north, finding a ...

from the

Burke and Wills expedition The Burke and Wills expedition (originally called the Victorian Exploring Expedition) was an exploration expedition organised by the Royal Society of Victoria (RSV) in Australia in 1860–61. The exploration party initially consisted of ninet ...

, and

Charles Kingsford Smith Sir Charles Edward Kingsford Smith (9 February 18978 November 1935), nicknamed Smithy, was an Australian aviation pioneer. He piloted the first transpacific flight and the first flight between Australia and New Zealand. Kingsford Smith was ...

's and

Charles Ulm Charles Thomas Philippe Ulm (18 October 1898 – 3 December 1934) was a pioneer Australian aviator. He partnered with Charles Kingsford Smith in achieving a number of aviation firsts, serving as Kingsford Smith's co-pilot on the first transpaci ...

's log of the Southern Cross. A wide range of individuals and families are represented in the collection, with special strength in the fields of politics, public administration, diplomacy, theatre, art, literature, the pastoral industry and religion. Examples are the papers of

Alfred Deakin Alfred Deakin (3 August 1856 – 7 October 1919) was an Australian politician who served as the second Prime Minister of Australia, prime minister of Australia from 1903 to 1904, 1905 to 1908, and 1909 to 1910. He held office as the leader of th ...

, Sir John Latham, Sir

Keith Murdoch Sir Keith Arthur Murdoch (12 August 1885 – 4 October 1952) was an Australian journalist and media proprietor who was the founder of the Murdoch media empire. He amassed significant media holdings in Australia which after his death were expan ...

, Sir

Hans Heysen Sir Hans Heysen (8 October 18772 July 1968) was an Australian artist. One of Australia's best known landscape painters, Heysen became a household name during his lifetime for his watercolours and oil paintings of the Australian bush, in pa ...

, Sir

John Monash General (Australia), General Sir John Monash (; 27 June 1865 – 8 October 1931) was an Australian civil engineer and military commander of the World War I, First World War. He commanded the 13th Brigade (Australia), 13th Infantry Brigade befor ...

Vance Palmer Edward Vivian "Vance" Palmer (28 August 1885 – 15 July 1959) was an Australian novelist, dramatist, essayist and critic. Early life Vance Palmer was born in Bundaberg, Queensland, on 28 August 1885 and attended the Ipswich Grammar School. Wi ...

and

Nettie Palmer Janet Gertrude "Nettie" Palmer (née Higgins) (18 August 1885 – 19 October 1964) was an Australian poet, essayist and Australia's leading literary critic of her day. She corresponded with women writers and collated the ''Centenary Gift Book'' ...

A.D. Hope Alec Derwent Hope (21 July 190713 July 2000) was an Australian poet and essayist known for his satirical slant. He was also a critic, teacher and academic. He was referred to in an American journal as "the 20th century's greatest 18th-century ...

Manning Clark Charles Manning Hope Clark, (3 March 1915 – 23 May 1991) was an Australian historian and the author of the best-known general history of Australia, his six-volume ''A History of Australia'', published between 1962 and 1987. He has been descri ...

David Williamson David Keith Williamson (born 1942) is an Australian playwright, who has also written screenplays and teleplays. He became known in the early 1970s with his political comic drama '' Don's Party'', and other well-known plays include '' The Clu ...

, W.M. Hughes, Sir

, Sir

William McMahon Sir William McMahon (23 February 190831 March 1988), also known as Billy McMahon, was an Australian politician who served as the 20th prime minister of Australia from 1971 to 1972. He held office as the leader of the Liberal Party of Australia ...

, Lord Casey,

Geoffrey Dutton Geoffrey 'Geppie' Piers Henry Dutton Officer of the Order of Australia, AO (2 August 192217 September 1998) was an Australian author and historian. Early life and education Dutton was born at Anlaby Station near Kapunda, South Australia on 2 Au ...

Peter Sculthorpe Peter Joshua Sculthorpe (29 April 1929 – 8 August 2014) was an Australian composer. Much of his music resulted from an interest in the music of countries neighbouring Australia as well as from the impulse to bring together aspects of Aborigi ...

, Daisy Bates,

Jessie Street Jessie Mary Grey Street (née Lillingston; 18 April 1889 – 2 July 1970) was an Australian diplomat, suffragette and campaigner for Indigenous Australian rights. She was referred to as "Red Jessie" by the Australian media, due to her support fo ...

, and

Eddie Mabo Edward Koiki Mabo ( ; Sambo) (29 June 1936 – 21 January 1992) was an Indigenous Australian man from the Torres Strait Islands known for his role in campaigning for Indigenous land rights in Australia, in particular the landmark decision of t ...

and

both of whose papers were inscribed on UNESCO's

Memory of the World Programme UNESCO's Memory of the World (MoW) Programme is an international initiative to safeguard the documentary heritage of humanity against collective amnesia, neglect, decay over time and climatic conditions, as well as deliberate destruction. It ca ...

Register in 2001. The library has also acquired the records of many national non-governmental organisations. They include the records of the Federal Secretariats of the Liberal party, the A.L.P, the Democrats, the R.S.L., the

Australian Inland Mission The Australian Presbyterian Mission was founded by the Presbyterian Church of Australia to reach those "beyond the farthest fence" with God's word. It is better known as the Australian Inland Mission (AIM). John Flynn was the first superinten ...

, the

Australian Union of Students The Australian Union of Students (AUS), formerly National Union of Australian University Students (NUAUS), was a representative body and lobby group for Australian university and college of advanced education students. It collapsed in 1984 and ...

, The

Australian Ballet The Australian Ballet (TAB) is the largest classical ballet company in Australia. It was founded by J. C. Williamson Theatres Ltd and the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust in 1962, with the English-born dancer, teacher, repetiteur an ...

, the

Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust The Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust (AETT) is an Australian theatre and performing arts company based in Sydney established in 1954. It is today especially known for its music scholarship program. History The Australian Elizabethan Theatre ...

, the

Australian Institute of Urban Studies Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Aus ...

, Australian Industries Protection League, the

Australian Conservation Foundation The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) is Australia's national environmental organisation, launched in 1965 in response to a proposal by the World Wide Fund for Nature for a more co-ordinated approach to sustainability. One high-profi ...

, and the

Australian Council of National Trusts The National Trust of Australia, officially the Australian Council of National Trusts (ACNT), is the Australian national peak body for community-based, non-government non-profit organisations committed to promoting and conserving Australia's Ind ...

. Finally, the library holds about 37,000 reels of

microfilm A microform is a scaled-down reproduction of a document, typically either photographic film or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about 4% or of the original d ...

of manuscripts and archival records, mostly acquired overseas and predominantly of Australian and Pacific interest. The National Library's Pictures collection focuses on Australian people, places and events, from European exploration of the South Pacific to contemporary events. Art works and photographs are acquired primarily for their informational value, and for their importance as historical documents. Media represented in the collection include photographs, drawings, watercolours, oils, lithographs, engravings, etchings and sculpture/busts.

Ephemera

The library contains a large amount of printed

, collected since the early 1960s and also including older materials. These include minor publications, pamphlets, leaflets, invitations, cards, menus, junk mail, as well as larger publications, such as

theatre programme A programme or program (see spelling differences) is a booklet available for patrons attending a live event such as theatre performances, concerts, fêtes, sports events, etc. It is a printed leaflet outlining the parts of the event scheduled t ...

s or retail trade catalogues. They are selected based on certain key criteria, such as information content, design elements, period representation, and

portraiture A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face is always predominant. In arts, a portrait may be represented as half body and even full body. If the subject in full body better re ...

. They are divided into various types or topics. This group includes the Performing arts ephemera collection (PROMPT). Within the PROMPT collection, there are further divisions by person or topic, for instance the J.C. Williamson collection of theatre ephemera, and performers such as

Dame Nellie Melba Dame Nellie Melba (born Helen Porter Mitchell; 19 May 186123 February 1931) was an Australian operatic lyric coloratura soprano. She became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian era and the early twentieth century, and was the f ...

and

Kylie Minogue Kylie Ann Minogue (; born 28 May 1968) is an Australian singer, songwriter, and actress. Frequently referred to as the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Princess of Pop", she has achieved recognition in both the music industry and fas ...

. Since around 2017, a team of volunteers has been using the PROMPT collection to add content to the

AusStage AusStage: The Australian Live Performance Database is an online database which records information about live performances in Australia, providing records of productions from the first recorded performance in Australia (1789, by convicts) up unt ...

database. The J.C. Williamson Distributed Collection is held across six organisations: the NLA;

Australian Performing Arts Collection The Australian Performing Arts Collection at Arts Centre Melbourne, formerly known as Performing Arts Museum (PAM), is the largest specialist performing arts collection in Australia, with over 780,000 items relating to the history of circus, danc ...

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

;

Mitchell Library The Mitchell Library is a large public library located in the Charing Cross area of Glasgow, Scotland. It is the largest public reference library in Europe, and the centre of Glasgow's public library system. History The library was initiall ...

in Sydney;

Queensland Performing Arts Centre The Queensland Performing Arts Centre (also known as QPAC) is part of the Queensland Cultural Centre and is located on the corner of Melbourne Street and Grey Street in Brisbane's South Bank precinct. Opened in 1985, it includes the Lyric Thea ...

Museum; Scenic Studios Australia Pty Ltd; and

Seaborn, Broughton & Walford Foundation The National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) is an Australian educational institution for the performing arts based in Sydney, New South Wales. Founded in 1958, it offers bachelor's, master's and vocational degrees in subjects including acting ...

Archives and Library collection. Both AusStage and the J.C. Williamson Distributed Collection were added to the UNESCO Australian

Memory of the World Register UNESCO's Memory of the World (MoW) Programme is an international initiative to safeguard the documentary heritage of humanity against collective amnesia, neglect, decay over time and climatic conditions, as well as deliberate destruction. It ca ...

in 2021.

Services

The National Library of Australia provides a national leadership role in developing and managing collaborative online services with the Australian library community, making it easier for users to find and access information resources at the national level. It provides services to libraries, publishers and the general public, with membership available to residents of Australia providing access to additional services. Some of the components of the services are: *For publishers: **Prepublication Data Service,

ISSN An International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) is an eight-digit to uniquely identify a periodical publication (periodical), such as a magazine. The ISSN is especially helpful in distinguishing between serials with the same title. ISSNs a ...

s and

ISMN The International Standard Music Number or ISMN (ISO 10957) is a thirteen-character alphanumeric identifier for Sheet music, printed music developed by International Organization for Standardization, ISO. Overview The original proposal for an IS ...

s for Australian publishers. **

(NED), to fulfill

obligations. NLA hosts and manages the service, whereby all

content published in Australia, as required by legal deposit legislation under the ''Copyright Act 1968'', is deposited remotely by the publisher, stored and made accessible to member libraries and the public. *For librarians: **The

Australian National Bibliographic Database The Australian National Bibliographic Database (ANBD), formerly part of the Australian Bibliographic Network (ABN) and for some years renamed Kinetica, is a national shared library cataloguing network, hosted by the National Library of Australia ...

(ANBD) and offers free access through the Libraries Australia subscription-based service. It is used for reference, collection development, cataloguing and interlibrary lending. **National Libraries Gateway. *Online, for the general public: **The

, which now incorporates

PANDORA In Greek mythology, Pandora was the first human woman created by Hephaestus on the instructions of Zeus. As Hesiod related it, each god cooperated by giving her unique gifts. Her other name—inscribed against her figure on a white-ground '' ky ...

(established 1996), the Australian Government Web Archive (AWA) and the ".au" domain archive. ** National Library of Australia Catalogue, a catalogue of resources in NLA which are available to the general public. ** Ask a Librarian for users in need of research assistance or general information about the National Library of Australia.

Trove

The online services mentioned above, and more, are accessible via the Trove service, which was launched in 2009. Trove is an online library database aggregator, a centralised national service built with the collaboration of major libraries of Australia. Trove's most well known feature is the digitised collection of Australian newspapers. Most NLA resource discovery services are now fully integrated with Trove. The service is able to locate resources about Australia and Australians, which reaches many locations otherwise unavailable to external search engines.

Publishing

The library produces non-fiction and children's books which explore the collections. These cover subjects including History,

Natural History Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

and Art. NLA Publishing has been a recipient of several Eve Pownall Award for Information Books.

Membership

Free registration with the library is allowed for all Australian residents, with cards sent to a physical address before use is allowed. Membership confers some extra benefits for users of the library, such as requesting items for use onsite in the reading rooms, and access to a select range of licensed electronic resources from offsite, such as the full text of ''

Encyclopaedia Britannica An encyclopedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, in a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into article (publishing), articles or entries that are arranged Alp ...

''. Electronic copies of some items are able to be ordered, and for members who can visit the library in person,

inter-library loan Inter-library loan (abbreviated ILL, sometimes called document delivery, document supply, inter-lending, inter-library services, inter-loan, or resource sharing) is a service that enables patrons of one library to borrow materials that are held by ...

s may be obtained to use in the reading rooms.

Directors-General

The following individuals have been appointed as Director-General or any precedent titles:

Funding problems

In 2016, with threatened funding cuts to Trove, a public campaign led to a government commitment of million in December 2016, spread over four years. By early 2020, with the surge in demand for all types of digital services, the National Library was having to cope with increasingly dwindling staff resources to develop services on Trove and National edeposit, and undertook a restructure of its staffing and operations.

References

Attribution *

Bibliography

* * * * * *

External links

National Library of Australia

National Library of Australia Catalogue

NLA Publishing

Australian Libraries Gateway

Australian Interlibrary Resource Sharing Directory

Electronic Resources Australia (ERA)

NLA Preservation Policy

Trove

National Library of Australia
National Library of Australia, ''Trove, People and Organisation'' record for National Library of Australia
Commonwealth National Library (Australia)
National Library of Australia, ''Trove, People and Organisation'' record for Commonwealth National Library (Australia)
Commonwealth Parliament Library (Australia)
National Library of Australia, ''Trove, People and Organisation'' record for Commonwealth Parliament Library (Australia) {{DEFAULTSORT:National Library Of Australia 1960 establishments in Australia Archives in Australia Commonwealth Government agencies of Australia Libraries in Canberra

Libraries established in 1960 Tourist attractions in Canberra Deposit libraries Sound archives in Australia Art museums and galleries in Canberra Museums in Canberra Music archives Music museums in Australia Library buildings completed in 1968 Commonwealth Heritage List places in the Australian Capital Territory Articles containing video clips Research libraries in Australia