Facts and figures

This snapshot is taken from our 2024-25 Annual Report.

Visitor reach

Onsite visits to Library events; the onsite and online bookshop; learning and school education programs; Library donors and Friends. (Based on postcodes voluntarily supplied and grouped by Australian Bureau of Statistics Remoteness Area Codes.)

Very remote 0.5%
Remote 0.1%
Outer regional 2.7%
Inner regional 13.0%
Major cities 83.8%

Map of the National Library's visitor reach for 2024-25, with the dots of varying sizes indicating number of visitors from an area. The largest dot is over the ACT, with other dots primarily being on the east coast

Visitor reach 2024-25

Research and information inquiries reach

Online research and information inquiries received via the Library's 'Ask a Librarian' service; research user registrations; fellowship and grant programs; Trove. (Based on postcodes voluntarily supplied and grouped by Australian Bureau of Statistics Remoteness Area Codes.)

Very remote 0.8%
Remote 0.9%
Outer regional 8.1%
Inner regional 17.2%
Major cities 73.1%

Map of the National Library's research and Information inquiries reach for 2024-25, with the dots of varying sizes indicating number of inquiries from an area. The dots are spread throughout the country, most concentrated along the east coast and in capital cities

Research and Information inquiries reach 2024-25

Our people

Note that upward and downward arrows reflect the trend from previous year.

406.7 staff (up) - average full-time equivalent
Median age of staff was 44 years
37.2% of ongoing staff have worked at the Library for over five years (down)
33 registered volunteers (up)
1,543 Friends of the National Library (up)

Buildings

We operated from 7 buildings.

The main National Library building
One administrative building
Four offsite collection storage repositories
An office in the Australian Embassy in Jakarta

Spaces

We operated 2 reading rooms and 2 galleries in the main building.

Main Reading Room
Special Collections Reading Room
Treasures Gallery
Exhibition Gallery

New items acquired

27,280 published works acquired (down)
17,285 unpublished works acquired (down)

Access and usage

20.9 million total website sessions (down) - includes Australian and international engagement and Trove website sessions
13.9 million Trove website sessions (down) - includes Australian and international engagement
55,158 physical items delivered to users either in reading rooms or offsite via interlibrary loan or document supply (up)
32,847 reference and information inquiries answered by Library staff (down)
21 billion Australian and online resources available (up) - includes all files in the Australian Web Archive, delivered via Trove
29.1 million newspaper pages available online (up)
524 million lines of text corrected (up) - all-time total since the National Library began tracking

Social media

Social media reporting relies on a third-party algorithm, which may be adjusted from year to year.

1,154,530 total social media engagements (up)

Visitors

388,422 onsite visitors (down)
530,590 offsite visitors (up) - total number of visits to third-party exhibitions

In 2024–25, there were:

172,567 reading room visitors (down)
93,046 visitors to our exhibition galleries (up) - exhibition galleries were closed for 6 months in 2023–24
11,216 visitors to events (down)
2,902 school students (up)
37 online events (up)
38,746 online event attendees (down)

Our staff delivered onsite and offsite public programs including:

67 public events (up)
303 volunteer-led tours (up)
94 organised school programs (up)
15 learning programs (up)

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