
There are entries for most of the Library's holdings of all formats of material on Kinetica (the National Bibliographic Database). The Library's online catalogue can be consulted via the Internet at the World Wide Web address http://nla.gov.au/catalogue/. Many guides to specific collections have also been mounted on the Library's World Wide Web site.
Although it was issued several years ago, the best published guide to the Library's older collections remains C.A. Burmester's National Library of Australia : guide to the collections, 4 volumes, Canberra, NLA, 1974-82. Other published guides include Principal manuscript collections in the National Library of Australia, 1992, Beth Stone, comp. Guide to microform research collections in the National Library of Australia, 1992, A catalogue of oil paintings in the Pictorial Collection of the National Library of Australia, 1988, Barry York, comp. Our multicultural heritage 1788-1945; an annotated guide to the collections of the National Library of Australia, 1995, Michelle Potter comp. A full house; the Esso guide to the performing arts collections of the National Library of Australia, 1991, and The Indian Ocean; a select bibliography of resources for study in the National Library of Australia, 1979. Ten volumes of the Australian Joint Copying Project Handbook have appeared so far. There are also guides to or lists of particular manuscript and pictorial collections. A growing number of them are also available on the Library's Web site.
In 2001 the Library published Remarkable occurrences; the National Library of Australia's first hundred years 1901-2000. It contains a series of essays on some of the great formed collections, such as the Hardy Wilson, Petherick, Ferguson and Nan Kivell collections, as well as the Library's manuscript, pictorial, map, music, oral history and Asian collections.
The National Library of Australia was created by the National Library Act 1960. However the Library's collections had their genesis in those of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library which was established in 1901. Most of the collections and services of the Parliamentary Library, in particular, the non-Parliamentary collections and services which, since the 1920s, had been known as the Commonwealth National Library, were transferred to the National Library of Australia upon its establishment.
It is a function of the National Library on behalf of the Commonwealth 'to maintain and develop a national collection of library material including a comprehensive collection of library material relating to Australia and the Australian people'. Library material includes books, periodicals, maps, manuscripts, music, newspapers, paintings, photographs, prints and other recorded material whether in writing or in some other form.
The Library's collection of published Australiana is one of the two largest in the world (the other being in the Mitchell Library in Sydney). Since 1912 the Library has enjoyed legal deposit privileges for Australian books, journals and other publications and it has the largest collection of 20th century Australiana in the world. From 1901 onwards it had been acquiring early as well as current Australiana and its holdings are mow remarkably comprehensive. The strength of the older collections was greatly enhanced by the purchase of the magnificent collections assembled by E.A. Petherick, Sir John Ferguson and Sir Rex Nan Kivell. Other more specialised collections held in the Library include the Gregory Mathews ornithological collection, the J.D. Holmes collection on Australian Federation, the F.J. Riley and Lloyd Ross collections on trade unionism, the E.A. Crome collection on aviation and the Ian McLaren collection of local histories.
The Library holds in either hard copy or microfilm all the leading newspapers published in the capital cities and major regional cities of Australia. A number of country newspapers are also held, although primary responsibility for the preservation of newspapers rests with the State libraries.
The Library's manuscript collection includes important collections relating to Australian politics since 1890 and to creative writing. The personal papers of ten Governors-General are held, together with those of fourteen Prime Ministers (from Sir Edmund Barton to Sir William McMahon) and more than a hundred Ministers and Federal parliamentarians. The literary manuscripts and personal papers of many Australian authors ranging the mid nineteenth century to the present. A few examples are Henry Handel Richardson, Vance and Nettie Palmer, Kenneth Slessor, A.D. Hope, Judith Wright, Christina Stead, Geoffrey Dutton, Rodney Hall, Les Murray, Tim Winton and David Williamson. An outstanding sequence of illustrated diaries as well as many illustrated manuscripts of the artist Donald Friend have been acquired, together with the papers of other artists such as Sir Hans Heysen, Noel Counihan, Clifton Pugh, James Gleeson and Judy Cassab. Papers are held of some major figures in theatre, ballet and other performing arts, including Sir Robert Helpmann, Dame Peggy van Praagh, Peter Finch, Edouard Borovansky, John Bell, Richard Wherrett and Ruth Cracknell.
The holdings of personal papers are by no means limited to politics, literature and the arts. Australians of national standing in many fields are represented and a few examples must suffice: journalists (Sir Keith Murdoch, Rohan Rivett, Graham Perkin, Phillip Adams), diplomats (Sir Keith Officer, Sir Alan Watt, Sir James Plimsoll), soldiers (Sir Brudenall White, Sir John Monash), business figures (Sir Gordon Jackson, Sir James Vernon), pastoralists (Sir Samuel McCaughey, Faithfull Family), lawyers (Sir John Latham, Sir James Barry), economists (L.F. Giblin, Sir Douglas Copland, H.C. Coombs, Heinz Arndt), geographers (Griffith Taylor, Oskar Spate), historians (Manning Clark, Russel Ward, Henry Reynolds), philosophers (John Passmore, Peter Singer), scientists (Dame Jean McNamara, Jock Marshall, Francis Ratcliffe), engineers (J.J.C. Bradfield), religious leaders (John Flynn, Bishop E.H. Burgmann, Sir Alan Walker), sportsmen (Sir Donald Bradman), feminists (Bessy Rischbieth, Ruby Rich, Anne Summers) and political and social activists (Jessie Street, Charles Duguid, Eddie Mabo).
The records of a range of national non-governmental organisations are held. They include the Australian National Research Council, the Australian Inland Mission, the Australian Union of Students, the Australian Institute of International Affairs, the Australian Council for Overseas Aid, the National Secretariat of the Australian Labor Party, the Federal Secretariat of the Liberal Party of Australia, the Returned Services League, the Australian Conservation Foundation, the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust, the Australian Ballet and J.C. Williamson Ltd. As the principal partner in the Australian Joint Copying Project from 1948 to 1993, the Library has a complete collection of the 10,000 microfilms made for the Project. The material filmed comprise both official and private records relating to Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific held by the Public Record Office in London and other repositories in Great Britain and Ireland. The Library also has a complete set of the film produced by the Pacific Manuscripts Bureau.
The Library's oral history collection was initiated in the late 1950s, primarily to supplement the holdings of the manuscript collection by recording interviews with distinguished Australians. Currently interviews are being recorded with eminent lawyers, judges and politicians, emerging Aboriginal leaders, former Australians of the Year, environmentalists, scientists, writers, journalists, artists and others. The collection also contains a significant quantity of folklore field tapes, including the John Meredith collection, the Norm O'Connor collection, the Rob Willis collection and the Wattle collection. In recent years a substantial number of interviews in the field of social history have been acquired, such as the Cultural Context of Unemployment Collection, the New South Wales Bicentennial Oral History Collection, the Bringing Them Home collection and the recordings made by Diana Giese with Chinese Australians.
The Library has the largest research collection of music in Australia. Its strengths are in retrospective and contemporary Australiana, including sheet music, published and unpublished scores and archival sound recordings of Australian folk song and dance traditions. There are also major formed collections of Australiana, 19th century music and performing sets of opera and musicals (J.C. Williamson Collection). Extensive personal papers and music manuscripts are also held in the manuscript collection, the largest being the John Antill, Don Banks, George Dreyfus, Larry Sitsky and Keith Humble, as well as younger composers like Elena Kats-Chernin and Andrew Ford. In addition, collections are held relating to the history of musical organisations, such as the Elizabethan Players and the Australian Youth Orchestra, and musical performance, including papers of Kenneth Hince, Nellie Melba, Joan Hammond, Ernest Llewellyn, Rex Hobcroft and Patrick Thomas.
The Library has an important collection of historical pictures, including about 50,000 paintings, drawings, prints and 651,000 photographs, which are part of the documentary record of Australian history and society. In developing the collection the Library acquires pictures of people, places and events of national significance. The most important collection is the Rex Nan Kivell Collection which relates not only to Australia but also to New Zealand and the Pacific.
The subjects of the pictures in the Library's collection include portraits, ships, the voyages of James Cook (by artists such as William Hodges and John Webber), topographical landscapes (with particular emphasis on early scenes of the Australian cities) and ethnography. Other artists represented in the collection include early travel artists such as Augustus Earle, convict artists such as Joseph Lycett, early settlement and gold mining artists like S.T. Gill, John Skinner Prout and Conrad Martens, and late nineteenth century artists such as Nicholas Chevalier, Eugene von Guerard and William Strutt. The Library has a major collection of the architectural and other drawings of W. Hardy Wilson. Important natural history illustrations are held, particularly the work of Marian Ellis Rowan, John Gould, Neville Cayley, W.T. Cooper, John Hunter, and Adam Forster. The Library has an outstanding collection of etchings and wood-cuts by Sir Lionel Lindsay.
The Library has a large collection of portraits, ranging from oil paintings of early explorers to thousands of photographs of contemporary Australians. Other photographic collections include the Keast Burke collection illustrating the development of photography in Australia, the Humphrey collection of ships trading in Australian waters, the Buckland collection relating to railways, the A.C. Butcher collection of photographs of Gundagai, the Corkhill collection relating to Tilba Tilba, and the Frank Hurley collection. There are also strong holdings of the works of noted photographers such as Harold Cazneaux, Herbert Ponting, Athol Shmith, Wolfgang Sievers, Olive Cotton and Max Dupain. Digital images of a selection of over 28,000 works from the pictorial collection have been mounted on the Library's information server and can be accessed through the World Wide Web (http://www.nla.gov.au/catalogue/pictures).
The Library's collection contains over 600,000 Australian and overseas maps, as well as a large number of atlases. Among these are over 400 rare atlases, dating from 1535. Special strengths of the map collection are 800,000 aerial photographs of Australia (1928-87); topographic and thematic mapping of Australia; large-scale Ordnance Survey mapping of the United Kingdom and Ireland; World War II mapping of South-East Asia and Europe; four major rare map collections, namely those of R.V. Tooley (emphasis on Australia and South-East Asia), Rex Nan Kivell (particularly early world maps), Sir John Ferguson (cadastral mapping of 19th century New South Wales, with emphasis on Sydney, and real estate plans of Sydney), and E.A. Petherick (a general collection of predominantly rare maps to 1900).
The Library has extensive holdings of non-Australian books, journals and newspapers, particularly relating to Europe, Asia, the Pacific and North America. It should be noted, however, that changes in collecting policy in recent years are resulting in the acquisition of much less overseas material, apart from Asian-Pacific materials, with greater emphasis placed on providing access to information through electronic databases and information retrieval systems. The Library will endeavour to obtain, whether by purchase, document supply systems or electronic sources, material needed by Fellows to supplement the existing holdings of overseas publications.
The British and Irish collections are extremely strong and only a few examples can be given. The Kashnor collection on the political economy of Great Britain and Ireland includes many rare works and editions of early economists. The collection of David Nichol Smith contains a wide range of first and early editions of the prominent and minor writers of the Restoration period and the 18th century. The Library has a virtually complete set of the Papers of the House of Commons from 1800 as well as extensive holdings of the House of Lords Papers with much of the record of the debates in both Houses. An important set of the Confidential Prints of the British Foreign Office for the years 1800 to 1915 is held.
Other subject areas where there are strengths include religion and law. The Library has the collected works of authors such as Luther, Calvin and Ignatius Loyola together with 17th and 18th century editions of the Church Fathers. Other materials include strong collections relating to Anglicanism, Methodism and the Jesuits. There are strong collections of legislation from most parts of the world together with an extensive collection of legal periodicals and reviews. Fields of special interest include constitutional law, federalism, and international law.
Within the Rare Books collection, which contains almost 70,000 items, there are significant resources of printed materials relating to the 18th century in general and in particular to the French Revolution. There is an interesting collection of French plays covering the period 1700 to 1840, for which a partial catalogue is available.
Some idea of the Library's considerable strengths in older materials relating to the United States of America will be found in America on Record, Canberra, 1976. The Library has developed strong collections of Canadian and New Zealand publications.
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