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Laurie Ferdinands and Peter Jetnikoff on the Library's collections

In this video, Laurie Ferdinands and Peter Jetnikoff from the Library’s collection resources team give us a glimpse into the Library’s acquisition and collection processes.

'With so many collection items at the State Library, we're working hard to ensure that the collection will support you to discover, learn, create and connect, and that you can find what you want on our catalogue, whether it's from the past or it's just been published this year.'

– Laurie Ferdinands

Laurie notes that the Library has been actively acquiring and cataloguing books, newspapers, articles and pictures for more than 160 years, recording the cultural life of Victoria along the way. We house an amazing 3.5 million items, with 80,000 new acquisitions added every year.

Around 220,000 catalogue records were added by the team in 2014, with 6500 records created from scratch by our staff.

Gaining access to this wealth of material is all-important, and Laurie traces the development of the Library’s cataloguing processes – from the handwritten registers of the 1850s and card cataloguing in the 1880s to microfiche in the 1970s and initial forays into digitisation in the 1980s.

We also meet Peter Jetnikoff, who manages the Library's collection of internet-based publications, archived on the National Library of Australia's PANDORA website. The collection provides a mini history of the internet’s development and usage, embracing every subject area, from government reports to local history projects and blogs.