The Library is unable to provide specialist advice about how to care for personal or family archives, but there are a number of resources which can help.

We hold one of Australia’s largest collections of performing arts materials.

Topic

Sydney’s first theatre was said to be opened in 1796 and was managed by Robert Sidaway.

Oral history interviews with people involved in all aspects of forest and around photographs depicting various aspects of forests and forestry work.

Module 

This resource is aligned with the Australian Curriculum: Civics and Citizenship for Year 8 students. It adopts an inquiry-based learning approach that develops a student’s understanding of Australians’ rights, freedoms and opportunities to participate in Australia’s democracy.

See some of the many talented bird artists from the 19th and 20th centuries in our collection.

Dr Christina Thompson presented a lecture on her 2023 Creative Arts Fellowship research into what happened when writing arrived on the islands of the Pacific.

Hear from Dr Deirdre O’Connell as she presents a lecture on her 2023 National Library Fellowship research about the extraordinary influence of Augusta 'Pakie' Macdougall who brought suffragist activism, Greenwich Village’s salon culture, and the Little Theatre movement to interwar Sydney.

The Library holds a rich and diverse range of documentary materials relating to the Pacific region, including Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia and New Zealand.

1,300 pamphlets and tracts published in Britain between 1829 and 1882. They provide a valuable record of the issues that were discussed and debated in Britain in the middle decades of the 19th century.