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Collection Guidelines - Other Collections
Australian Collection
Australian material is recognised as having a high value in supporting the teaching, learning and research activities of the University. The Library aims to develop a broad and comprehensive collection of Australian material and actively collects materials published in Australia or about Australia that support teaching, learning and research activities.
Areas of specific interest include:
- Australian multicultural authors
- Australian literature
- Australian history
To support the Library’s special collections, some specific targeted areas for selection include:
- An archival collection of publications by Deakin University authors or about Deakin University
- Any publications relating to Western Victoria (Geelong through to South Australian border)
- Any publications relating to Alfred Deakin or the Federation era
An Australiana blanket order profile with an Australian book supplier is one method the Library uses to regularly acquire relevant material as well as targeted purchases to support specific teaching, learning and research needs.
The following types of materials are normally considered peripheral to the Library’s collecting goals and will generally be excluded from the Australian material blanket order program:
- General recipe books (without specific content of academic relevance)
- Pictorial or coffee table books
- Humorous material or cartoons
- Non-Deakin course materials
- Light, popular fiction
- Self published poetry
- Language and linguistic material that is not relevant to the teaching programs of the university
- Family histories (except for those with western Victorian connections)
- Travel tales
- War stories/memories
- Popular, non academic works (though some life/study skills materials are normally included)
- Non-academic or self-published religious works
- Works in a foreign language
- Minor art exhibition catalogues
The Library is part of the Australian Government Publications Deposit scheme which supplies gratis copies of many Australian government publications. The library is also a deposit centre for the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) as a member of the ABS’s Library Extension Program (LEP). ABS now mainly publishes statistics online but provides some print copies of core titles to LEP libraries.
Whilst print material has been the traditional focus of Australiana collections, in recent years there has been a considerable increase in access to online materials. Deakin is contributing to the Australian Digital Theses project and the Austlit, Australian literature project which aims to facilitate access to Australian literature. Australian books and journals are increasingly being acquired in electronic format.
Other publicly available online Australiana resources include:
Australian Cooperative Digitisation Project - Four Australian fiction titles, published between 1840-1845
Project Gutenberg - Australiana Collection - The Australiana Collection of this free e-book repository. This collection contains much Australian fiction in addition to key Australian non-fiction and reference works
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