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Explore cook and the pacific exhibition

  • Revised Average Annual Rainfall Map, Australia and Tasmania, circa 1920
    DIGITAL CLASSROOM

    Australia's Wild Weird Wonderful Weather

    School’s in at the National Library’s Digital Classroom! Recent NLA Publishing release, Australia’s Wild Weird Wonderful Weather, has inspired us to put together a Digital Classroom module to develop students’ understanding of weather, environments, people and systems.

    Learn more
  • Sophia Street, Surry Hills, NSW, circa 1911
    READ

    Old Sydney

    In the first decades of the 20th century, a trend developed in Australian art for romantic, sentimental pictures of the built environment from the colonial past, particularly that of Sydney.

    Uncover history
  • Blue Birds of Paradise
    READ

    The Flower Hunter in New Guinea

    ‘I have travelled all over the world, and have never seen more beautiful flora than that of New Guinea.’ - Ellis Rowan. In the latest blog post from curator Dr Grace Blakeley-Carroll, learn more about Rowan's 1916 and 1917 visits to New Guinea...

    Read the blog

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Explore our collections

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  • Archived websites

  • Asian

  • Dance

  • Printed ephemera

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  • Manuscripts

  • Maps

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  • Newspapers

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  • Pacific

  • Pictures

What's on

View all
  • Australian Dreams Exhibition Branding
    03 Aug to 31 Jan
    Exhibition

    Australian Dreams: Picturing our Built World

    9:00 am to 5:00 pm

    For over 200 years, painters, printmakers and photographers have been in a creative conversation with the built environment. Reflecting progress, social ideas, understanding of the...

  • Most likely The Empress of Germany's Bird of Paradise
    08 Sep to 08 Mar
    Exhibition

    Birds of Paradise - Ellis Rowan in New Guinea

    9:00 am to 5:00 pm
  • family photograph. family members lined up in descending order largest to smallest. outside on a grassed area in front of trees.
    11 Nov
    Learning session

    Family History for Beginners Learning Webinar

    Online
    1:00 pm to 2:00 pm
  • Book cover of 2020 The Year That Changed Us
    17 Nov
    Talks / Lecture

    In Conversation with Michelle Grattan 2020: The Year That Changed Us

    Online
    12:30 pm to 1:30 pm

New & NoteworthyStories

  • 23 Oct
    Blog post

    Interview with author Patricia Clarke

  • Blue Birds of Paradise
    23 Oct
    Blog post

    Ellis Rowan

  • Sea creatures from Fauna: Australia's Most Curious Creatures by Tania McCartney
    16 Oct
    News

    Book Week 2020

  • Various children's books from NLA Publishing
    16 Oct
    Blog post

    Where the Children's Books Are

  • Black and white photograph of Sophia Street in Surry Hills with new electric streetlights, around 1911
    12 Oct
    Blog post

    Old Sydney

  • 09 Oct
    Blog post

    Whatever the weather!

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The National Library of Australia (NLA) acknowledges Australia’s First Nations Peoples – the First Australians – as the Traditional Owners and Custodians of this land and gives respect to the Elders – past and present – and through them to all Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

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