We hold the largest collection about Australia and Australian people in the world, primarily composed of physical and digital documentary materials. The Treasures Gallery is an opportunity to showcase aspects of this broad collection. 

In 2011, the Gallery opened telling a chronological story of Australian colonial history, moving from exploration to Federation then to the 21st century. Over the last year the Exhibitions team has been working on a refresh of the Gallery. Besides a lighter and brighter colour scheme, new carpet and additional furniture, the Gallery now provides an overview of what the Library collects and how we endeavour to make those collections accessible to everyone. This includes contemporary material as well as ‘old’ favourites. We have also included children’s labels throughout the space, aimed for the young and the young at heart.

Where are the books?

As our Reader Services staff and volunteer guides shared with us, one of the most common questions when people visit the Library is ‘where are the books?’. The Treasures Gallery will go some way towards providing an answer. Artist Aaron de Smet was commissioned to create two models which are whimsical representations of the Library’s reading room and storage stacks. These models have been installed in a new Introductory Wall (what was the gold Realia Wall). Also in that wall are 3 short videos of collection items being retrieved from the storage stacks and viewed in the reading rooms, being digitised, and being preserved by members of the Collection Care team.

Concept of treasures

The Exhibitions team wanted to democratise the concept of a ‘treasure’, so we start with a small display featuring Mem Fox’s children’s book, Where is the Green Sheep? with illustrations by Judy Horacek. This is followed by some items that demonstrate different types of printing, starting with pages from the First Folio of William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice (1623), along with 貝葉畫羅漢並書贊 [Bei ye hua Luo han bing shu zan] a book about the Sixteen Arhats who were enlightened disciples of the Shakyamuni Buddha dating to the 19th century and published in China, and 2 Japanese woodblock prints. 

Legal deposit

The Gallery then moves to a display on legal deposit. One copy of everything published in Australia is given to the Library under the legal deposit provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. Since 2016, when the Act was expanded to include electronic publications, the ‘nation’s bookcase’ is now also digital. Included in this display is poet Dorothea Mackellar’s bookcase and a selection of books. Among these are a 2010 Perth Street Directory, a Holden Commodore car manual from 1979, a self-published book by historian Juanita Kwok, an electronic publication of Vogue Australia magazine and a First Nations comic ebook Dark Heart. We also display examples of Zines – a form of DIY publishing – such as Trouble zine and features articles about feminism, especially Lesbian feminism.

Your National Library

The next part of the Gallery, ‘Your National Library’, traces history of the Library from the National Library Act 1960 to the opening of the building in 1968 through to the creation of Trove in 2009. A section called ‘We Are Australian’ provides a snapshot of Australian life through photographs as well as the original sheet music to Waltzing Matilda from Christina Rutherford MacPherson. Posters are also featured in this area, such as Condoman Says: Don’t Be Shame, Be Game: Protect Yourself! 

Family stories

Next to this area is a space dedicated to family history research that encourages visitors to explore the resources the Library has available.

The display uses the Lockhart family as a case study for family history research, and includes family photos, written accounts and an oral history. At the heart of the display is an image of the family's wedding veil, which was digitised by the National Library in 2025. The veil was purchased by Agnes Lockhart for her wedding to Norman Hackett in 1929 and was worn by 27 brides over the course of 64 years before being donated to the Library by her daughters in 2005. It is truly a family treasure. 

A collection of more than books

The ‘Australia and the World’ section features items from the Library’s current overseas collecting priority areas of the Pacific, Indonesia and China. 

A section about 'Place' features case studies on Norfolk Island and South Australia, including a copy of Colin Thiele’s children’s classic Storm Boy, published in 1964. 

Australia’s digital bookshelf is also represented in the gallery by a projection featuring websites of The Wiggles between 1997 and 2025 captured as part of Australia’s Web Archive. These can be found using Trove which gathers the catalogues of other Australian libraries and collecting institutions into one online database.

The Library’s manuscripts and archive collection features in another section. This includes selected photographs, maps and documents from Freda Thompson, a pioneering Australian aviator, which have recently been digitised. The other case study includes documents, photographs and a contemporary shopping bag representing the small businesses that Lebanese Australians created from the end of the 19th century to today which were documented by the Australian Lebanese Historical Society. 

Around the corner, is a small display about democracy and the Library’s political ephemera collection. The display about the Mabo decision in 1992 has been reinstalled as well.

See our treasures

The refreshed version of the Treasures Gallery opens to the public on Saturday 13 December 2025. We hope to see you at your National Library and invite you to come and have a look and explore the refreshed Gallery.