National Library of Australia

Maps digitisation - progress so far

Selecting material for digitisation  

General selection criteria for the National Library’s digitisation program can be found in our Collection Digitisation Policy.

The Library aims to digitise selected Maps collections, based on such factors as historical and/or cultural significance, uniqueness of the material, likely demand for the material. Copyright and preservation considerations are also taken into account.

Progress as of 30 June 2010

10 238 items, consisting of 19 032 images, from the National Library’s Maps Collection have been digitised.

The map collections fully digitised are: Nan Kivell (860 items), Ferguson (915 items) and Tooley (1 643 items) collections. Good progress has been made on the Rare Maps collection, with 5 519 items already digitised.

Examples of Map collections items already digitised

Future digitisation plans

A selection of Maps materials will continue to be systematically digitised. See Current priorities for more details on the 2010-11 digitisation program.

The Library's long term plan is to complete digitisation of the following categories of its map material:

  • Pre-1900 maps
  • Post-1900 out of copyright Australian maps, including topographic and other series mapping at large, medium and small scales published by national and state mapping authorities; these total over 200 000 items
  • Cadastral county and parish maps, road and tourist maps, electoral maps and other thematic mapping held for all Australian states and territories.

More Maps

Other online resources

Curator's Choice

  • 2/1st Australian Army Topographic Survey Company, Kokoda, New Guinea 1944
    2/1st Australian Army Topographic Survey Company, Kokoda, New Guinea 1944

This Second World War topographic map of Kokoda shows the location of villages, tracks, a canoe route, seaplane bases and mission stations. Map images from the Library’s Digital Collection are interactive. Use the Zoom control to pan and examine details.