Our purpose
Our Research Library maintains a collection that reflects the core activities and collecting themes of the National Museum of Australia.
Established in 1984, the collection has more than 40,000 holdings made up of books, journals and archival material. It continues to grow, and provides a significant research tool for Museum staff and other researchers, with specialised collections in:
- Australian anthropology and archaeology
- natural history
- cultural history studies
- Australian school histories
- steam engineering
- ornithology
- museum studies and conservation
- corporate history of the Museum.
Our services
Search our online catalogue. Our holdings are also discoverable on Trove.
General collection items are available for inter-library loan to external researchers. These requests are managed through participating libraries of Libraries Australia Document Delivery service.
Please note the Research Library is closed to the public, however, special arrangements can be made to view an item.
Email us your queries about the collection or accessing an item and we will aim to answer in 10 working days. This includes requests for scans.