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BUILDING THE COLLECTIONS

 

New South Wales Department of Lands
Plan of Snow Leases Lots Numbered 61-72 Inclusive, Parishes of Murray, Cooleman, Long Plain, Nattung, Yarrongabilly, The Peaks and Peppercorn, Counties of Cowley and Buccleuch 1892
map; 118.4 x 80.2 cm
Map Collection, nla.map-rm3690

The most important thing ... is to grow the collection.

Participant, Evaluation of the National Library of Australia’s Onsite Reference Services and Collection Delivery

The National Library’s primary objective is to ensure that a comprehensive record of Australian history and endeavour, and a selected record of the world’s knowledge, is collected, cared for and made accessible. While a significant proportion of the Library’s Australian print collection is acquired through the Legal Deposit provisions of the Copyright Act 1968, new items are also acquired through purchases, gifts and donations. In 2003, new acquisitions included:

  • The journal of James Hay, Second Lieutenant on HMS Emerald, one of the British warships of the Australian Station, 1880–82.
  • A very rare 1892 map of the Kosciuszko Region, entitled Plan of Snow Leases Lots Numbered 61–72 Inclusive, Parishes of Murray, Cooleman, Long Plain, Nattung, Yarrongobilly, The Peaks and Peppercorn, Counties of Cowley and Buccleuch.
  • Shen Hongsheng shou shu ben Zhongguo gu dian wen xue si da ming zhu (Four Literary Classics Transcribed by Shen Hongsheng) in presentation cherry wood boxes. A gift to the Prime Minister from the Chinese Government, they have been donated to the Library.
  • Twenty digital colour exhibition prints of the Tasmanian Wilderness by eminent photographer and conservationist, Peter Dombrovskis.
  • A Chart of Bass’s Straits with the Traks [ie Tracks] of the Harbinger Captn. John Black in Decr. 1800 & Jan. 1801 and the Margaret Captn. John Buyers in Jany. & Feby. 1801 through the Straits in Their Passage toward Port Jackson, c. 1803–1820. This important manuscript map of Bass Strait is believed to have been compiled by a French cartographer from survey notes by Matthew Flinders.
  • A magnificent two-volume album of plates for children, Buffon en estampes: planches et illustrations (Paris, c.1860), featuring lithographic plates of four Australian native animals by the celebrated French natural history illustrator Edouard Travies.
  • A very rare pamphlet, Emigration to Western Australia (Dublin, c.1837), promoting the attractions of the Swan River Colony, then only eight years old, to Irish migrants.
  • Oral history interviews of significant Australians, including playwright Nick Enright, Steven Heathcote, principal dancer with The Australian Ballet, bureaucrat Sir Richard Kingsland, and singer-songwriter Ted Egan.
  • Personal papers of many contemporary Australians, including the novelist Murray Bail, the composer James Penberthy, archaeologist Rhys Jones, the feminist Elizabeth Reid, and the politician Fred Chaney.
  • A number of new electronic publications and websites including Bushfires, Canberra, ACT, January 2003, a collection of Australian websites documenting the Canberra bushfires, nla.gov.au/nla.arc-c8075; Iraq War 2003, a collection of Australian websites documenting Australia’s involvement in the war in Iraq, nla.gov.au/nla.arc-c8125; and Libraries in the Online Environment, the report of the Senate Environment, Communications, Information Technology and Arts References Committee, nla.gov.au/nla.arc-38307.