Newsflash:

We’re open every day except Good Friday, 29 March. View our Easter opening hours here ›

Foundation digital projects

The Library's extensive and innovative digital story collections have been created with the help of many Foundation partners

The Discover Collections

Girl holding up tablet to picture of flower from behind

As early as 2001, the Library had a vision to create an innovative and interactive online portal to enable universal access to the Library’s rich historic collections of national significance (including manuscripts, photographs, journals, letters, paintings etc.).  A project – Discover Collections (originally called atmitchell.com) – was created as a vehicle to raise funds to facilitate this vision. Without any government funding, the Foundation implemented a fundraising strategy to source financial and in-kind support from a diverse range of benefactors, both corporate and private foundations and individual philanthropists to meet an ambitious digitisation target. 

From 2004-2013 the Discover Collections program was realised with over 35 amazing stories liberated from the Library’s vast collections.  These online collections “from the vaults to the people” give a virtual tour of significant and unusual stories and have proven to be of great resource for students and researchers.  

The sheer size of the Discover Collections is truly impressive and so digital migration is an ongoing work in progress. Of the Discover Collections some material has already been moved across into Stories.

The Discover Collections include:

History of our nation

This is an unrivalled collection of journals, logbooks, letters, paintings, drawings and books documenting the experiences and achievements of the first British settlement in Australia:


Our Natural World

Through a variety of images, stories and documents discover the rich and unique environment which fascinated the European settlers and continues to challenge and influence us today:


People & Places

Discover the history of a specific region and the people who made it. Take a look into the lives of rural and urban families, who settled in various regions across New South Wales


Society, Art & Culture

Through the Library's significant collections, these stories trace the development of a unique Australian culture, enriched by immigration from all over the world