Collect Today What Will Be Important Tomorrow
The Library aspires to enable Australians to understand their diverse social, cultural and intellectual histories by collecting and preserving Australian publications and unpublished collections in print and digital forms so that they can be enjoyed by current and future generations. It also aspires to build a rich collection of print and digital resources that enable learning, research and understanding of the Asia-Pacific region and Australia’s place in the world. This policy expands on the Library’s Collecting Strategy 2020–2021 to 2023–2024.
Purpose of the Collection Development Policy
The Library’s Collection Development Policy defines the scope and nature of its collecting of Australian and overseas materials. It sets out the key principles that underpin the ongoing development of the Library’s national collection, and from which the Library’s decisions to acquire materials flow: why, what, when and how to collect.
Digital Preservation Policy 4th Edition (2013)
1. Purpose
This statement outlines the National Library of Australia’s policy on preserving its digital collections, and collaborating with others to preserve digital information resources.
The Library’s digital preservation program forms part of its overarching Preservation Program which covers all formats of material the Library collects. This policy should be read in conjunction with the Library’s general Preservation Policy and other policy documents and guidelines relevant to the way digital resources are created, selected, acquired, described and accessed. These can be found on the Library’s website at Policy & planning and Policy and practice statement. Of particular relevance are the Library’s Collection Development Policy, Collection Digitisation Policy and Collection Preservation Intent Statements.
Guidelines for the discard and retention of library material
These guidelines summarise the National Library s policy on discarding materials from its print collections.
They are based on two simple principles:
1.The National Library generally does not collect multiple copies of library material, except in the case of Australian monograph material considered to be of high research value and likely to be in high demand, where two copies are acquired: an N or legal deposit copy and an additional NL or lending copy. The Library s overseas printed collection generally consists of only single copies. Additional copies of some Australian publications may also be acquired for the Library s reference collection, and are not intended to be preserved once they outlive their usefulness for this purpose. The nature and development of both the overseas and Australian print collections is governed by the Library s
1 February 2017 - 12:00
In February 2016 the legal deposit provisions in Australia’s Copyright Act were expanded to include digital publications and the public .au web domain. The result of twenty years of advocacy, the new provisions marked a dramatic shift in how Australia collects, preserves and makes accessible the full online publishing landscape.
Legal deposit has been the core of the National Library’s collections and services since it was introduced in Australia in 1912. It remains the most important mechanism by which national and state libraries can preserve the published record of their countries or states. But since the emergence of electronic publishing in the 1980s and online publishing in the 1990s, the Australian legal deposit scheme has been only performing half its role.