The ACT Heritage Library collects, manages and provides access to material relevant to the ACT's documentary heritage. It offers assistance in researching matters relating to the ACT, its history and its development.
Collections
Books and journals
The collection of books and journals in the ACT Heritage Library focuses on the works published in the ACT, by ACT residents, or about the ACT. Special collections include the collection and a small zine collection.
Local and regional newspapers
The ACT Heritage Library has a strong collection of local and regional newspapers in microfilm and print, including newspapers from culturally and linguistically diverse communities and a complete run of Canberra Times from the 1920s.
Maps and plans
The ACT Heritage Library holds 4,000 maps and plans of Canberra and the ACT and plans of some public and private buildings. A full listing of the is located on the ACT Heritage Library website.
Archives
The collection of approximately 200 archives and manuscripts collections in the ACT Heritage Library focuses on local groups and individuals who have made notable contributions to the ACT community. Strengths include early childhood education and performing arts. An held and links to finding aids is accessible from the ACT Heritage Library website.
Ephemera
The ACT Heritage Library has an extensive of around 300 archive boxes and 2,000 posters, with a particular strength in the performing arts. Finding aids for the Library's general ephemera, posters and performing arts ephemera collections are available from the Library's website.
Photographs
The ACT Heritage Library has three significant collections of images:
Photographs from the Canberra Times and the Canberra Chronicle from the 1970s to the 1990s;
Photographs from the Commonwealth Department of Capital Territory from the 1950s through to the early 1980s; and
The David Coward Photography Collection, a collection of over 300,000 negatives, the work of commercial photographer, David Coward who operated in Canberra, 1958-2003.
Material from the collections is being digitised and catalogued in the on-line database, , which currently includes over 8,000 digitised photographs of the ACT and region from the ACT heritage Library. Additional ACT photographs held in national and state institutions, as well those from Images ACT, can be found on .
Exhibitions
The ACT Heritage Library regularly presents small in their reading room, with additional exhibitions held in the Civic Library building. Some of the treasures of the ACT Heritage Library featured in the touring exhibition , which toured to every capital city from 3 December 2005 to late 2007. is an online exhibition, sampling the collection of the ACT Heritage Library and reflecting the changing landscape lifestyles of the Canberra region and its community.
Collaborative services and projects
The National Library of Australia and the ACT Heritage Library work cooperatively to ensure the preservation of newspaper titles published in the Australian Capital Territory under the Australian Newspaper Plan. The ACT Heritage Library contributes its digitised images from , to Trove, an online service, managed by the National Library of Australia, which allows you to search many significant collections at the same time.
