Once derided as a 'bush capital' and 'little more than a village', Canberra has caught up in leaps and bounds over the last 50 years, especially in the development of its treasure-stores of culture. The National Library of Australia is one of the shiniest of such cultural gems. It's a part of the Parkes Place campus of museums and places of culture, and is an impressive building in its own right. It's also one of the few libraries in the world where rock-climbers come to scramble. That's thanks to the rough-cut surface of its sheer granite walls.
The inside is given over to a different kind of adventurer – those looking to research, explore or be astounded by the windows opened up the world, via its 10 million items. The term 'items', rather than books, is deliberate. The National Library of Australia has branched out to cover all forms of printed material and recorded media. It could be maps, music, pictures or audio recordings – in fact anything that is made to be heard, viewed, pored over or read. They even have a collection of archived websites.
The focus is naturally strong on anything connected to cultural world of Australia, but the Library has a mandate to collect books from across the globe. And it has organised these extensive collections into themes – Asian, Dance, Manuscripts, Oral History, Pacific and more. Turn up at one of its reading rooms, browse the catalogues for what you want, and the staff will whisk you to your cultural selections.
One of the most interesting is the 'Ephemera' collection. This has collected together all the materials made for Aussies, which are read-and-then-thrown – pamphlets, advertising posters, catalogues and even scrapbooks. Programmes, tickets and promos from Australia's performing arts are especially valued, and kept in the separate PROMPT collection. Creased and dog-eared they may be, but in a world where digital relentlessly sweeps all before it, it's good to know that there’s a place that understands the need for real objects to connect you to the past.
