A blog post by Olivia

Earlier this year, with great excitement, I packed up my life and moved to the Bush Capital to begin a graduate role at the National Library of Australia.

My first week at the Library was busy as I toured the book stacks, learned about the architecture of the library, explored the galleries and heard about the research of some of our Petherick Readers.

In my current role I work closely with the collection and readers. Every day I see more and more of the Library’s collection and am astounded by the range of content we hold. I was also excited to discover that, with a library card and an internet connection, there is a breadth of resources which readers can access without coming in to the National Library. With family and friends dotted around the country, I took some time to search through our eResources to pick out a few which I thought they would enjoy. With the Library’s temporary building closure in place, I thought it would be timely to share my recommendations with you.

Available from the front page of the National Library website, the National Library’s eResources portal is an online platform which allows Readers to conduct full-text searches of the eJournals and eBooks in our collection.

Free, licenced and onsite eResource symbols

Free, licenced and onsite eResource symbols.

We have three categories of eResources accessible through the Library: free, licenced, and onsite.

  • You can access free eResources at home or in the Library, without needing a library card.
  • You can access licenced eResources at home or in the Library if you have registered with the National Library, using the User ID number that is noted on the back of your library card and your surname. Due to licensing agreements access is available from within Australia only.
  • You can only access onsite eResources within the National Library building due to licensing restrictions.

The following are licenced eResources which you can access at home with your National Library card. Many of my family members are avid news readers so some of these resources are for them, whilst others are targeted at my friends who studying at university.

eResources for Newspapers

For those wanting to keep up-to-date on news and current affairs, NewsBank: Access World News provides access to current and archived media publications from around the world. Australian publications on NewsBank include The Australian, Canberra Times and many local newspapers such as the Maitland Mercury and the Mudgee Guardian.

For complete digital editions of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age from 2006 to date, check out The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age: library edition.

Diaz, Maggie. (1965). Newspaper seller, Melbourne, ca. 1965 http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-152775848

Diaz, Maggie. (1965). Newspaper seller, Melbourne, ca. 1965 http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-152775848

eResources for Research

Interested in health and wellbeing? Consumer Health Complete provides content on a range of topics including nutrition, fitness, and men and women’s health from mainstream medicine perspectives as well as holistic and complementary medicine perspectives.

For the science enthusiasts amongst us, Academic Search Complete holds thousands of full text peer-reviewed journals covering a wide range of topics including biology, chemistry, engineering, physics, and psychology as well as religion and theology. With over 1000 journals, monographs, newspapers and selected conference proceedings, JSTOR is also a great resource for those researching science, social science and/or humanities. Similarly, Ebsco ebooks provides access to an expanding collection of multidisciplinary eBook titles on a broad range of academic subjects such as arts and humanities, Asia Pacific, business and commerce, and science and technology. 

Interested in the study of women’s history, feminism and the women’s rights movement? Be sure to check out the Gerritsen Collection of Women’s History which contains full text books, pamphlets and periodicals spanning four centuries.

Or, maybe your interests are broad and a little erratic, the Encyclopaedia Britannica will provide you endless reading about notable events and people, maps of continents, countries and oceans and much more.

Fairfax Corporation. (1920). Two scientists inspecting a chemical in the Health Department Laboratory, New South Wales, ca. 1920 http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-157623917

Fairfax Corporation. (1920). Two scientists inspecting a chemical in the Health Department Laboratory, New South Wales, ca. 1920 http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-157623917

eResources for Entertainment

Got an inkling for tinkering? For DIY aficionados, Hayne’s Manuals AllAccess is worth exploring. Covering a wide range of makes and models of cars and motorcycles, Hayne’s Manuals AllAccess includes repair and maintenance guides, wiring diagrams and more.

If flicking through magazines is more your speed, look no further than PressReader. PressReader provides access to over 7000 newspapers, magazines and periodicals from around the world. Titles are archived for the previous three months and are displayed in their original format and layout. Popular titles include The Guardian, Taste, Lonely Planet, Playstation Official Magazine, The Monthly, Good Health and The Insider.

Perhaps Antiques Roadshow is a guilty pleasure and you’ve found yourself wondering how much your tucked-away treasures are worth. Head to Carter's price guide to antiques and collectables to see detailed descriptions, professional colour photographs and price ranges of thousands of items sourced from auction sales in Australia and New Zealand. 

Image

Fairfax Corporation. (1930). Woman sitting in a race car at the Gerringong Motor Races, New South Wales, 10 May 1930 http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-157983478

You can use your Library card to access these resources from home. If you don't have a Library card, you can register online. For more information on how to use our eResources, visit our eResource research guide.

Other online resources

In addition to our eResources, we also have blog posts, research guides, webinar records and podcasts which can be accessed from home.

Written by staff here at the National Library, our blog posts highlight some of the treasures held in the Library's collection and reveal some of the magic of the Library; such as the conservation treatment given to a copy of Pamela Lyndon Travers’ Mary Poppins.

It can be difficult to know where to start with your research. To help you get stuck in, we have developed a series of research guides which contain advice, key resources, featured collection items, selected websites and research case studies to help you navigate the depths of our collection.

The National Library also offers a variety of learning sessions to help people understand and access our collections and services. A number of these are recorded and made available to watch on our YouTube channel. Our sessions cover a variety of topics, including Trove and family history.

Lastly, perhaps you prefer to listen rather than read. We've got you covered with a range of podcasts to listen to, including book launches, lectures and interviews.

Even though the building is temporarily closed, our Ask a Librarian service is still operating. So if you have any tricky research questions, we're here to help.

582