A large range of current and historic Australian newspapers in digital format can be directly accessed online via Trove and our eResources portal.

Trove

Trove's digitised Australian newspapers provides numerous historical Australian newspapers published between 1803 to 1954. It includes national titles as well as those published in each Australian state and territory. It supports browsing by title, date and location as well as searches. Articles and pages can be printed and downloaded and citations are provided.

The Australian Newspaper Digitisation Program (ANDP) has the long-term objective of making as many Australian newspapers as possible published prior to 1955 freely available online through Trove.

eResources

The Library's eResources portal provide listings to free media websites as well as our subscription digital resources. Some of these resources can be accessed from home or work by Australian residents who are registered readers of the Library. These can be identified in eResources by the use of the 'key' symbol and include:

• Newsbank: Access Global is a collection of full text newspapers from over 170 countries. There are over 600 Australian newspaper titles at all levels and include The Australian, The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Land and The Daily Telegraph.
• PressReader provides access to over 1000 newspapers in 40 languages from more than 80 countries including Australia. Coverage is provided for the last 3 months only.
• Sydney Morning Herald Archives 1955-1995 provides full-text coverage to every edition of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Sun-Herald between January 1st, 1955 and February 2nd, 1995. The Archives are available offsite for registered National Library readers.
• The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age : library edition provides complete digital editions of each paper from 2006 to date.

You can access these databases by visiting the eResources portal and clicking the Browse eResources tab.

There are also some databases that you can only access at the Library.

Please visit our eResources page for more information and to view the full list of available databases.

Onsite use - Print and microfilm

Daily and weekly issues of selected Australian print newspapers are made available in the Main Reading Room.

Sets of most major Australian capital city newspapers dating from 1950 are shelved in cabinets in the Newspapers and Family History zone and can be accessed on a self-service basis.

A list of available titles is provided and each cabinet and drawer is labelled for ease of identification and retrieval.

Closed access - Print and microfilm

If the newspaper titles or dates you are looking for are not held in the reading room, you will need to search the Library catalogue to check for holdings and to request available items from our closed newspaper stacks.

To request material from the newspaper stacks you must be registered as a National Library Reader.

Both print and microfilm newspapers will normally be delivered to the Newspapers and Family History zone within 45 minutes unless they are stored offsite.

Login to the catalogue and view your list of requested items or ask our staff at the Newspapers and Family History zone Information Desk to check for delivered material.

Microfilm reader / scanners

The Newspapers and Family History zone currently provides 18 microfilm reader / scanners for use in viewing microfilms (16mm and 35mm formats), microfiche and microprints.

These are viewed using software on the adjacent PCs which allow for printing and scanning of selected content.

Offsite storage

All issues of Australian print newspapers published prior to 2011 are stored offsite and are not available for immediate delivery.

Deliveries of requested items are made once daily between Monday to Friday.

Loui Seselja, [Interior view of the stack at Hume Warehouse, Annex of the National Library of Australia, Canberra, 2005], nla.gov.au/nla.obj-131043749

Accessing newspapers from outside the Library

Although our Australian print and microfilmed newspapers can only be used in the Newspapers and Family History zone, access to many Australian newspapers in digital format is provided to registered Library users via eResources.

Trove also provides freely available access to our digitised historic Australian newspapers.

Copies Direct is a fast, easy and inexpensive way to get copies of items from the collection.

Our regular dailies

You can read the latest print edition of the following Australian newspapers in our Newspapers and Family History zone:

• The Advertiser
• The Age
• The Australian
• The Australian Financial Review
• The Canberra Times
• The Courier-Mail and Sunday Mail
• The Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph
• Herald-Sun news-pictorial and Herald-Sun Sunday
• Koori Mail
• The Land
• The Mercury, Saturday Mercury and Sunday Tasmanian
• The Queanbeyan Age
• The Sun-Herald
• The Sydney Morning Herald
• The Yass Tribune

Issues from the last three months of each of the above major Australian capital city dailies are also boxed and available for access in the Main Reading Room.

Check the format

When newspapers are not available online you may need to made a request via our catalogue.

Check the format, as noted in the catalogue, as many newspapers are on microfilm as well as in print.

When available in both print and microfilm, please request the latter.

For reasons of preservation, access to microform copies is preferred to print unless absolutely necessary.

The Library holds indexes, both general and specific, to a large number of Australian newspapers.

General indexes may list the broad range of topics reported on whilst specific indexes may just include references to birth, death and marriage notices.

To find out if the Library holds an Index for an Australian newspaper title:

1. Go to the catalogue
2. Click on the Browse alphabetically tab
3. Select Subjects from the Browse menu option
4. Enter the name of the newspaper followed by the word, 'indexes'.

For example:

• sydney morning herald indexes

The following links lead to a browsable list of state and territory newspapers and relevant indexes:

• australian newspapers new south wales
• australian newspapers northern territory
• australian newspapers queensland
• australian newspapers south australia
• australian newspapers tasmania
• australian newspapers victoria
• australian newspapers western australia

News headlines

Australian news summary : from the Herald and the Sun news-pictorial, Melbourne

This two page newspaper, ‘Published twice a week for Australians abroad,’ gives headlines and summaries for major news items as well as local news.

There is also a business digest and sporting highlights from Australia.

The Library has issues from 1960-1975.

Max Dupain, Card catalogue at National Library of Australia, 1968, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-144066439

The Library provides access to a valuable collection of newspaper cuttings files.

The files, containing articles from many Australian national, regional and local newspapers, were selected and maintained by Library staff and cover the time period from the late 19th century to approximately 2000.

Their value for research is that the majority of articles cover a time period largely not covered by online newspaper services, such as the Trove digitised newspapers and the international and national newspaper databases available from the Library's eResources service.

Cuttings fall into 5 distinct sequences:

• Biographical
• Book review
• Geographical
• Organisations
• Subjects

What is in the files ?

The content of the files may vary, but it will include either a cutting or an original article from a newspaper, or in the case of older articles most commonly an index reference to where the article can be found, i.e. title of newspaper, title of article, year of publication and date. As all index references were compiled from material received at the National Library, researchers can request the specific item via the online catalogue.

Using the files at the Library

All files once requested via the online catalogue are delivered to the Newspaper and Family History Desk in the Main Reading Room. Once a researcher has finished with a file, it is returned to the same point.

Copies of files may also be requested via Copies Direct. Contact the Ask a Librarian service to obtain an indication of the content of the file prior to placing a Copies Direct request.

The newspaper cuttings sequences

Biographical

Contains cuttings and references to articles on significant Australians in all walks of life.

The sequence ceased in 2000. All biographical cuttings files have been catalogued and can be requested online via the catalogue.

To find a file, enter the name of the person and the words 'biographical cuttings' into the keyword search box in the catalogue, e.g. 'Norman Lindsay biographical cuttings', and request using your National Library card.

Book reviews

These files contain cuttings and references to book reviews by Australian authors, published in Australia and overseas.

Authors range from the significant to the less known and include many reviews of works by immigrant authors.

Files are predominantly for works of fiction although some non-fiction cuttings can be found. Many of the authors in this sequence also contain a separate file in the Biographical sequence so it is useful to request files from both sequences as the content may be complementary. The sequence ceased in 2000.

This sequence is the only one which is not yet totally available to request online. Requests for files can be made via the online catalogue using either the collective catalogue record for the entire collection if a file cannot be found OR by entering the name of the author and the words 'book review cuttings" as a keyword search into the catalogue, e.g. 'Rae Else-Mitchell book review cuttings and request using your National Library card.

Researchers can also find valuable material on Australian authors online in AUSTLIT available via our eResources service.

Geographical

Contains cuttings on Australian states, cities, towns and geographical features such as waterways.

Some non-Australian content is included where it is of relevance to Australia, such as Antarctica and countries of the South Pacific such as Fiji and Samoa.

All geographical files have been catalogued and can be requested online via the catalogue.

Enter the name of the geographical area and the words 'geographical cuttings' as a keyword search in the catalogue, e.g. 'Sydney Harbour geographical cuttings', and request using your Library Login.

Organisation

Contains cuttings on a variety of Australian organisations including but not limited to political parties, government departments, Royal Commissions, religious groups, legal cultural and social bodies, festivals.

All organisational files have been catalogued and can be requested online via the catalogue.

Enter the name of the organisation and the words 'newspaper cuttings' as a keyword search in the catalogue, e.g. 'Australian wool corporation organisations cuttings', and request using your Library Login.

A feature of the Organisations files is that although the folders have been catalogued under the name of the majority of the articles, earlier and later names of the organisation where known have been included in the catalogue records. This means that the organisation can be found when searching on any form of the name as a keyword search.

Subject

A large sequence containing cuttings on a variety of topics such as libraries, defence, political parties, immigrants and industry.

Social issues are also included, e.g. smoking, road safety. All subject files have been catalogued and can be requested online via the catalogue.

Enter the name of the subject and the words ' subject cuttings' as a keyword search in the catalogue, e.g. 'solar energy subject cuttings', and request using your Library Login.

Using the clippings files

All press clipping files can be collected from the Newspapers and Family History zone information desk in the Main Reading Room.

They can be read in the vicinity and articles may be copied.

Files are to be returned directly to staff at the issue desk.

A sample drawer containing biographical clipping files

Self-service copying

The Newspapers and Family History zone has microfilm and microfiche reader-scanners and printers plus a multi-function device incorporating printer, photocopier and scanner.

We allow you to

• photocopy articles or pages from loose issues of recent print newspapers
• scan and save to USB articles or pages from loose issues of current print newspapers
• photograph (using your own device or our digital camera) articles or pages from loose or bound newspapers
• scan and print articles or pages from microfilmed newspapers
• scan and save to USB articles or pages from microfilmed newspapers
• scan, save and e-mail articles or pages from microfilmed newspapers
• print articles or pages from digital newspapers
• save to USB articles or pages from digital newspapers
• save and e-mail articles or pages from digital newspapers
• request photographic images of articles, pages or illustrations from our newspapers

You are not permitted to photocopy articles or pages from bound volumes.

Copyright

If you intend to copy an entire issue of a newspaper, you must observe the Copyright Act 1968. See: Copyright in Library collections

There are signs giving details near all the reader-printers and the photocopiers.

Charges

Charges apply for all copying, however, self-service scanning and photography is free.

For self-service copying charges, see: Print, copy, scan.

Costs for requested copying can be viewed at: Buy copies.

How to order a copy using the Catalogue

Step 1 : Find the item in the catalogue

• Search the catalogue for items held by the Library.

Step 2 : Check the copyright status

• Once you find the item you are looking for in the catalogue, check the ‘copyright status’ field in the catalogue record (this applies when copying entire issues, not single articles). If the field says:
  • ‘Out of copyright’ then we can copy the whole issue and send it to you by email or post.
  • ‘In copyright’ there will be limits on what we can send. Generally for items in copyright we can copy one chapter or 10% for research and study. This means that a single article, no matter the date, can be copied.
  • 'Copyright undetermined' then this may mean that copyright may vary depending on the date of each issue. You may have full rights to copy, or may only be able to copy under some circumstances, for example a portion for research or study. For further advice please Ask a Librarian or proceed to place your request and we'll let you know if we cannot supply it.
  • For more information visit our copyright pages.

Step 3 : Place your order

• To place an order, click the ‘Order a Copy’ at the top of the catalogue record to take you to Copies Direct.
• Fill in the online form, the cost will be automatically calculated and you can pay online.
• You will not be charged if the material cannot be supplied.

Copying tips

Visit Copies Direct to learn about costs and delivery.

For items that are in copyright, we can generally copy one chapter or 10% for research and private use.

More help

• See our video on ordering copies.
• Please contact Copies Direct if you need help placing an order.
• Check out our frequently asked questions about copyright or Ask a Librarian.