What we collect
Social History collection
See also: Find Oral History | Using the Collection
Since the 1970s social history projects have been conducted throughout Australia by state and local libraries, educational institutions, private and public organisations and societies. In recent years a substantial number of interviews in the field of social history have been acquired from around Australia by the National Library, which also conducts social history projects of its own. Important collections include the national Cultural Context of Unemployment and Australia 1938 projects, the People's Forest, focusing on the Australian forestry industry, the Women of the Land Project, the Australian response to AIDS Collection, Post-war Chinese Australians, the Maltese Immigrants Project, Australian Caving, Wendy Lowensteins Communists and the Left in the Arts and Community, and the Circus Collections.
A number of regional studies have highlighted the daily lives and work experience of ordinary Australians. These include the Snowy Mountains Collection, the Namadgi, Galong and Tharwa Projects, the Helen OShea Collection (Western Victoria), and Jeff Carters Working People series.
A major recent project has been the Bringing Them Home Stolen Children's Oral History Project. Over 300 interviews have been recorded to create a rounded history of the experiences and perspectives of various people who were involved in the process of child removals.
Though the volume and variety of this work means that little has been transcribed, the sound recordings have contributed to what is an important and on-going research program.
