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Facts and figures

General Facts

Our operating revenue for 2010–2011 is estimated at $61.7 million, comprising:

  • $49.1 million (80%) in government appropriation
  • $12.6 million in external revenue.

Our expenses in 2010–2011 are estimated at $74.5 million ($61.4 million excluding collection depreciation), including:

  • $34.8 million (47%) in salaries
  • $18.3 million in supplier expenses
  • $7.7 million depreciation and amortisation with equivalent funding used to replace assets—buildings, software, plant and equipment
  • 13.1 million for collection depreciation for which no equivalent funding is provided
  • $0.6 million in other areas.

In addition to the above revenue the government is providing the Library with $9.7 million to assist in developing the collection.

Our buildings number five: four in Canberra and one in Jakarta, Indonesia. They are:

  • the main Library building
  • two repositories for offsite collection storage
  • an exhibitions fabrication workshop
  • an office in Jakarta within the Australian Embassy.

Our staff in 2009–2010 averaged 491 employees (equal to 446 full-time staff):

  • 70% of staff are female
  • 28% of staff have been in the Library for at least 15 years
  • the median age of staff is 46 years. The Library also has a volunteer program which currently has 77 volunteers.

Our visitors—local, national and international—numbered 549 000 in 2009–2010.

Our Friends of the National Library is an active group with around 2000 members. Major Friends events include the annual Kenneth Myer Lecture and the celebration of the contribution of a significant Australian to books and book culture.

Our website received over 279 million page views in 2009–2010, a 78% increase over the previous year.

Facts on the Library’s collections

There are approximately 10 million items in the Library’s collection. The Library collects books, journals, newspapers, archives, manuscripts, pictures, photographs, musical scores, maps, websites and oral history and folklore recordings.

In 2009–2010, the Library received 73 900 new items.

As at June 2010, the proportion of the Library’s collection currently on the online catalogue is 89.5%. The total number of items without online records is now estimated to be about 644 000 items (mostly comprising photographs and maps). The Library has an ongoing catalogue conversion program.

The Library digitises selected items in its collections. A total of 162 000 items had been digitised as at June 2010. The Library also collects online publications and websites through PANDORA and has undertaken large scale harvests of the Australian web domain. In June 2010, the total size of the Library’s digital collections reached 917 terabytes.

The Library is also undertaking a major newspaper digitisation project and, as at June 2010, over 2.1 million digitised pages were available to the public under this project.

The objective of our digitisation program is to make our collections more accessible, to engage with new audiences and to preserve rare and fragile materials.

Facts on access

Reading rooms There are currently seven reading rooms:

  • Main Reading Room
  • Newspapers & Microforms Reading Room
  • Petherick Reading Room (a facility for advanced researchers and those using rare or vulnerable materials, and for after-hours use of special collections)
  • Pictures, Maps, Manuscripts and Asian collections reading rooms.

We are planning further reading room integration associated with a master building plan and the development of a Treasures Gallery on the ground floor.

Usage and access figures in 2009–2010 include:

  • over 285 000 physical items were delivered to users either on site through the reading rooms or via interlibrary loan
  • over 51 000 reference enquiries were answered
  • 11.6 million transactions took place across our online collections, including across PANDORA, our digitised collections and our free and subscribed electronic journals
  • 140 computers were available for public use in the reading rooms. All reading rooms were wireless enabled and this service was heavily used with up to 100 concurrent laptop users active at any one time
  • over 485 000 people entered the Main and Newspapers & Microforms reading rooms
  • over 24 000 people participated in Library events and education activities.

Opening hours

  • Main and Petherick reading rooms are open for a 67.5 hours a week, over seven days
  • Newspapers & Microforms Reading Room is open 48 hours a week, Monday to Saturday
  • Pictures, Maps, Manuscripts and Asian collections reading rooms are open 40 hours a week, Monday to Friday
  • The Main, Petherick and Newspapers and Microforms Reading Rooms are open on all public holidays except Good Friday, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, and New Year’s Day.The Library’s Pictures and Manuscripts, Maps and Asian Collections Reading Rooms are closed on all public holidays