Pacific collections
About the Pacific collections
The strength of the Library's Pacific collections reflects Australia's strong historic and continuing connections with the region. The collections include:
- Printed materials: thousands of books, newspapers and journals ranging from the earliest accounts of the Pacific to contemporary publications.
- Manuscripts: papers of many Australians who were involved, personally or professionally, with the Pacific and Papua New Guinea. Supplemented by microfilmed materials from the Pacific Manuscripts Bureau (PMB) and the Australian Joint Copying Project (AJCP) series.
- Pictures: paintings and photographs dating from the earliest voyages to the present day. Many have been digitised.
- Maps: rare and beautiful early maps as well as recent material.
- Archived websites: selected by the Library and hosted on the Internet Archive. Mostly government or research sites around a theme, for example Papua New Guinea Elections 2007.
Highlights
Begin exploring our Pacific treasures by viewing the highlights below.
Over 15,000 items relating to Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific.
Maps of the Pacific Ocean region
Terence and Margaret Spencer collection
Slides of Papua New Guinea, 1953-1978.
Ernest and Sarah Chinnery collection
Manuscripts, maps and a large collection of photographs related to Papua New Guinea 1910-1940
From 2007 onwards. Many have now changed or completely disappeared from the "live" Internet.