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The National Library of Australia in 2003

Cample of tapa cloth

This image of tapa cloth is one of the many digital images available online through the Library's website. By the end of 2003, the National Library had digitised 67 000 pictures, 1500 maps, 3500 pieces of sheet music, as well as selected books and several manuscript collections.
nla.pic-an7726415

 

2003 In Brief

A New National Library Catalogue

Expanding Digital Access

Developing Collaborative Services

Supporting Research

Encouraging Engagement

Building the Collections

The National Library Online

 

I think the National Library as a whole is a temple of scholarship—they still want to collect knowledge and translate knowledge and make it available.

Participant, Evaluation of the National Library of Australia’s Onsite Reference Services and Collection Delivery

This statement, by one of the participants in the recent ‘Evaluation of the National Library of Australia’s Onsite Reference Services and Collection Delivery’, summarises the focus of many of the National Library’s activities in 2003. Whether it be restructuring the website, developing new services, or offering public programs, the Library’s goal has been to make Australia’s pre-eminent documentary heritage collection as accessible as possible.

Readers still use our collections in traditional ways. They come to our reading rooms; they continue to borrow books on interlibrary loan. Increasingly, however, people expect to be able to obtain the information they need quickly and easily. In 2003, we have focused on assisting users to get the information they want in the way that they want to receive it—in the Library, at home, in their office, through other libraries and cultural institutions, in traditional formats and via the Internet.