Archive for 2010

Behind the zines

Zines are self-published paper publications on a variety of topics that are fast gaining popularity in Australia. The NLA’s growing collection, acquired from Zine Fairs and via legal deposit, provides a unique perspective on Australian culture.

Diary of a preservation newbie

It’s a friday, and the view from the fourth floor on this late spring day is gorgeous. I’m thinking i’m not so new now: i started in January, after 6 months of volunteering in the bindery. I love every minute of it. Every book is different, and my jobs at the moment are pretty much [...]

Video highlights the Library’s eResources collection

The National Library subscribes to a large number of subscription databases covering a wide range of subject areas. Many of these databases can be accessed by registered users from home via the Library’s eResources page. A recent collaborative project managed by Reader Services staff has produced a short video on how these databases and resources [...]

Life in the Hill End goldfields 1872 and a mystery to solve

The Library recently digitised the Album of photographs of gold mining, buildings, residents and views at Hill End and environs, New South Wales, 1872-1873. This album is part of the B.O. Holtermann archive of Merlin and Bayliss photographic prints of New South Wales and Victoria. The album contains 550 albumin sepia toned photographs. As the [...]

Acquisitions trip to a Canberra newsagency

We didn’t pinch it from the doctor’s waiting room really…

Recently a team of people from the Library’s Australian Serials section went to a local newsagency looking for issues of new serial titles which otherwise may never have made their way into the national collection.

Books and their owners: a tiny link with the past

Books often have associations that mean more than the text between the covers. Another example surfaced recently.

Now that’s a lot of enquiries!

The National Library’s Ask a librarian service answers hundreds of offsite reference enquiries each month.  The majority of these enquiries are received via our online enquiry form, though we also receive reference enquiries by phone, letter, fax, email, and chat. To give an idea of figures, in August Library staff answered 2640 reference enquiries from [...]

Blowing our own trumpet : collecting contemporary music

Hello from the Music Unit! Our unit was created in 2008 after it was decided that the Library’s music collection would benefit from the creation of a dedicated cataloguing and acquisitions team. Until then maps and music had been acquired and catalogued by the same team. However, because of the particular challenges posed in developing, [...]

Confirming UFO “sightings”

A rather quirky reference enquiry received from far away Canada.    Q: Does your library have any record of a strange UFO incident which (reputedly) occurred on June 13, 1961 at Bethungra, N.S.W. in which a 25m-diameter disc became entangled in telephone wires at a railroad station? A: I have done some searching for information about [...]

SA newspapers filmed

The National Library and the State Library of South Australia have recently preserved two major South Australian newspapers – the Sunday Mail (1956-1977) and the Chronicle (1955-1975). Both of these newspapers have been microfilmed through the National Library’s cooperative newspaper microfilming program. The rich newspaper heritage of SA provides a unique window into Australian life. [...]