In the second part of our sports stories series, we turn our attention to books by and about the Australian athletes on the basketball and tennis courts and in the swimming pool.

Since the Library was founded, our goal has been to collect and share Australian stories. Recently, we have been particularly focused on exploring Australian sports stories through our exhibition, Grit & Gold: Tales from a Sporting Nation.

Celebrate William Shakespeare's birthday with Shakespearean gems from the National Library's rare books collections.

Online services will be temporarily unavailable while we undertake planned maintenance.

Researchers, academics and creatives are encouraged to apply for 6 philanthropically funded scholarships and 5 grants which open for applications on Monday 1 May 2023.

A 1913 Russian brochure on teaching the 'Australian method' of swimming has recently been added to our collection.

Learn about the fascinating career of Eleanor Witcombe with 2023 National Library Fellow and biographer Eleanor Hogan.

The Margarita Philosophica (Pearl of Philosophy) (1517) of German Carthusian monk and prior Gregor Reisch (c. 1467-1525).

The redeveloped Catalogue is now live.

To celebrate these places of learning, exploration and relaxation, we have created a list of our top picks to help bookworms and library lovers of all ages get in the Library Lovers’ Day spirit!

See how Yvette Grant used the Library’s collections to revive the memory of four women in the story of Australian ballet

Today, we can find the meaning of a word online. In the past, we only had physical dictionaries. (I had a 1980 reprint of The Australian Pocket Oxford Dictionary (1976), covered in royal blue contact paper.)