Collection Development

The Collection & Resourses Development Policy (CRDP) sets out the principles and guidelines that provide the foundation for developing the State Library's Collection. This policy defines the Library's collection aims, identifies its strengths and outlines its collecting intentions.

Read the Collection & Resources Development Policy>

Collecting printed material

The Library aims to comprehensively collect Victorian printed material. This is assisted by the legal deposit provisions of the Libraries Act 1988, which require that the Library receives one copy of every book, journal and newspaper published in Victoria. The Library also collects a wide range of Australian published material in a variety of formats. Overseas material is collected more selectively, although the collection of 19th-century overseas books, journals and newspapers is particularly noteworthy.

Collecting digital material

In recent years, there has been a major change to the Library's collecting with the provision of digital information to Library users. The Library offers access to electronic databases as well as to digitised images of many rare and important items in its collections. The Library also acquires Victorian web publications to add to PANDORA, a national online archive managed by the National Library of Australia.

The shift in focus to digital resources has enabled the Library to increase the range of resources available to its users and to move away from collecting in some print formats, such as overseas newspapers. It is the Library's intention to continue to move in this direction.