General collections

As of August 2010 our collection has grown to over 102,000 titles.

Books and pamphlets

We collect publications relating to all topics of interest and relevance to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander studies.

Subject areas include: Languages, culture and society, family history and biography, visual arts, creative arts, performing arts, songs and music, history, health, education, land rights, native title, business and economics, media, film and communications, environment, cultural heritage protection, sport, government policy, law and justice and Australian parliamentary reports.

open stacks

The general collection. Photo: AIATSIS

The majority of the library's print collection is held in open stacks in the Stanner Reading Room, which is open to the public on weekdays from 11:00am - 03:00 pm.

Readers are welcome to browse through the shelves, but our book collection is arranged by Author name, rather than by subject, so for this reason it is better to use the catalogue, Mura© to locate material relating to your area of interest.

Serials

The Serials collection includes: magazines, newspapers, Australian Bureau of Statistics reports, annual reports, transcripts of Royal Commissions and court cases, relevant House of Representatives and Senate --

Many of the serials are rare, such as annual reports from Indigenous organisations and are held in the Rare Serials Collection in secure temperature controlled storage facilities.  The oldest serial titles are: Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (vol. 1 1872 to present), Science of Man (vol.1 1896-vol.11 1913), Proceedings of the Linnean Society of NSW (1876 - 1911). If you wish to access an issue of a rare serial, you will need to request it at the reference desk.

The serial list is in alphabetical order and contains the name of every serial and its call number in the AIATSIS Library.  Please note that the Library does not hold every issue of every serial title.  Also, specific details i.e. publisher, years and volumes held, of every serial title are not yet available on Mura®, the AIATSIS catalogue.  Some serials are general titles but are in the collection because they contain articles on Indigenous studies ie caving journals containing articles on rock art, archaeology etc.

We offer a copying service for remote users.

Reference collection

Titles which can be consulted for bibliographic or factual information and which meet both the general and specific criteria set out in this policy, are kept in the Reference Collection. Dictionaries, encyclopaedia, handbooks, surveys and other materials are added to the Reference Collection where relevant. Core academic reference works published in other subject areas are selected where they provide fundamental bibliographic access to, or an introductory overview of, an academic discipline.

The aim is to acquire and retain works which are currently the most authoritative in their fields. The collection is kept up-to-date by the acquisition of new materials and the de-selection of superceded items.

CD-ROMs in the collection


The Library’s CD-ROMs are available to the public in the Stanner Reading Room. They cover a wide range of subjects with many interactive and multimedia materials.

Ask Library staff which CD-ROM title from this list you wish to access. They will then arrange for you to use.

The list of CD-ROMs( pdf 62Kb) is arranged by subject below. Most entries will have a description of what the CD-ROM contains. Ask Library staff for more information if required. The CD-ROMs are arranged by general topic, but with titles covering many subjects, it is advisable to browse the listing.

The subjects are:
Archaeology
Arts
Children
Community CD-ROMs
Dreamtime and Stories
Family History
General CD-ROMs
Health
History
Language
Literature
Music and Dance
Native Title
Reconciliation
Reference
Science and Environment
Stolen Generations
Torres Strait Islands