What we collect
How we build our collection
What we collect is directed by our collection development policy and collecting strategy. We focus on:
- legal deposit
- selectively collecting Australian works
- commissioning photographs of key events or producing selected oral histories
- selectively collecting items from overseas.
Legal deposit
Legal deposit is at the heart of our collection. Under the Copyright Act 1968, anything published or self-published in Australia must be deposited with the Library. This ensures a comprehensive record of Australia's stories—past, present, and future.
What we collect
We collect a wide range of formats, including:
- books
- ephemera
- magazines, journals and zines
- manuscripts and personal papers
- maps
- newspapers
- objects
- oral histories
- photographs
- pictures
- posters
- sheet music.
What we look for
We collect material of national significance. This includes unique items that document the lives, places, and events shaping Australian society.
What is national significance?
An item of national significance helps tell the broader Australian story. This could be through:
- historical patterns, social trends, or cultural movements
- events that had a major impact on Australia, such as the Freedom Rides or the Gold Rush
- items that show shared experiences, like a photograph of people wearing masks during the 1919 influenza epidemic (that devastated Australia after the First World War)
- materials featuring well-known Australians, such as a 1932 photograph of Australian Olympians.
National significance can evolve over time as we recognise previously overlooked aspects of Australian culture and history. A useful guide is to ask: Will this item matter to people across Australia?
What we are collecting now
Our collecting priorities change over time. See what we are currently looking for.
Learn more about our collections
Formats

Official site of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, captured in the Australian Web Archive, 3 October 2000 (view online)

Norman Lindsay & John Longstaff, Official programme of functions and displays to celebrate the opening of the first Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia by His Royal Highness the Duke of Cornwall and York, at Melbourne, 1901, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-226142741

James Cook, Excerpt from Captain James Cook's Journal of the H.M.S. Endeavour, Friday, 23rd March, 1770, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-2354391495

J. van. Loon & Andreas Cellarius, Sitvs terrae circvlis coelestibvs circvndatae, 1660, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-230714394

Paolo Giorza's 1879 Exhibition album for piano, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-165951572

Arrival of the first newspapers to go by air to Normanton, aircraft was a Perseus, a DH 50 built by Qantas at Longreach, 1 July 1927, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-144684965

Damian McDonald, Portrait of Smoky and Dot Dawson at the National Library, 2000, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-136550848

Ellis Rowan, Chrysanthemums, ca. 1890, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-138089294
Australian artist Ellis Rowan primarily worked in watercolour and gouache, and is best known for painting Australian native flowers. She caused a stir at the 1888–89 Centennial International Exhibition in Melbourne when her painting Chrysanthemums won First Order of Merit and Gold Medal. This similar painting, depicting the same type of flower, is a more recent addition to the Library's vast Rowan Collection, the bulk of which was acquired for the nation for £5,000 in 1923.
Regions

Bijin Shinobazunoike o nozomu, Beauty looking at Shinobazu Pond (1895), nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn5744665

Terence & Margaret Spencer, Independence Day Celebration (15) Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, 1975, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-145645567