What We Collect

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Oral Histories

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In accord with its national heritage responsibilities, the National Library produces, collects and preserves recorded interviews and other forms of oral history which will meet the documentation, research, publication and exhibition needs of the Australian research community.

The Library's Oral History Collection was initiated in the late 1950's to supplement manuscript holdings by recording Interviews with Eminent Australians. The Library has also brought together a significant quantity of Folklore field tapes, following the post-war folk culture revival in Australia. In recent years a substantial number of interviews in the field of Social History have been added, contributing to a balanced national collection of some 58,000 oral history and folk recordings.

Interviews held in the field or at the Library's Sound Recording Studio are collected according to the NLA Collection Development Policy.