Rare Books collection

As of August 2010 the Library holds over 1930 rare book titles.  These are selected on the basis of age, rarity, value or sensitivity of the material for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and individuals.

Bibliographic details of all items in the collection are in Mura® the online catalogue. Rare books and serials are prefixed with RB or RS. If you wish to access items from the Rare Book Collection you will need to request them at the reference desk.

rare books

Some of the items in the rare Book collection. Photo: AIATSIS

The Rare Book Collection is housed in secure, temperature-controlled storage facilitites appropriate for the preservation of special materials. Special procedures are followed by staff handling these items and visitors are required to use care when accessing them.

Visitors are not allowed to do their own photocopying of items from the Rare Books collection. Copying from these materials can only be carried out by library staff using special planar scanners.  This is to protect fragile materials from further deterioration. 

This library has compiled an online exhibition of a selection of rare books from the collection. Click here to view the exhibition.