Australian Collection
The Australian Collection contains printed material written by or relating to Australian Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders.
Access
Access to this collection is restricted. Short term loans are available to Macquarie academic staff and postgraduate research students. Initial requests for consultation should be made to staff at the Information desk, Level 2.
Scope and Content
The Australian Collection includes commercially published as well as non-commercially published material, Commonwealth and state government publications, serials, newspapers and pamphlets.
The Library purchases all currently published material primarily in the English language as well as older material which comes to the Library's notice. Where possible, items purchased for the Australian Collection are duplicated in the main collection.
All items in this collection are recorded in the Library's online catalogue.
Exclusions from the collection are:
- Rare Books.
These are housed in the Rare Book Collection. - Theses.
These are housed in the Thesis Collection. - Fiction and juvenile titles.
Not included unless of Aboriginal authorship. - Non-print formats.
Collection significance
The foundation of the Australian Collection is the collection of approximately 2,000 volumes known by the name of its donor, Joan McIlrath (Mrs. A.H. McDonald).
Mrs McDonald built a comprehensive collection of literature relating to the Australian Aborigine in Northern Australia which was presented to Macquarie University in 1968. At the same time she provided an endowment to provide funds for the Library to acquire material to add to the collection.
This collection also includes first editions of a number of accounts of the major exploring expeditions in Australia, many of which are rare.
All rare books included are in the original McIlrath bequest are housed in the Library's Rare Book Collection on Level 1.
Significant titles in the original bequest include:
- Flinders, Matthew, 1774-1814. A voyage to Terra Australia: undertaken
for the purpose of completing the discovery of that vast country, and
prosecuted in the years 1801, 1802 and 1803. London, G & W Nicol,
1814.
- La Perouse, Jean Francois de Galaup, Comte de, 1741-1788. Voyage
de La Perouse autour du monde, public conformement au decret...
London, Hamilton, 1799.
- Leichhardt, Ludwig, 1813-1848. Journal of an overland expedition in Australia from Moreton Bay to Port Essington a distance of upwards of 3000 miles, during the years 1844-1845. London, Boone, 1847.