Special collections
The library's Rare Book Collection features items which are rare or unique, limited editions of significance, and other notable items.
The strengths of the collection are in natural history and ornithology, Australiana and cricket. However the collection also includes literature, art and history. Some images from the collection have been included on the Library’s digital image database, Hunter Photo Bank.
Titles of interest include
- John Gould’s Birds of Australia, Birds of Europe, Birds of Great Britain, and Birds of Asia.
- Picturesque Atlas of Australasia (1886) which includes a number of images of Newcastle
- Memoirs of James Hardy Vaux: a swindler now transported to New South Wales for the second time and for life (Second edition, 1827) includes a chapter describing Vaux’s life as a convict in Newcastle.
- Voyage to the Pacific Ocean … by James Cook (1784)
- An historical account of the transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island by John Hunter (1793)
- Journal of a voyage to New South Wales with sixty five plates of non-descript animals, birds, lizards, serpents, curious cones … by John White (1790)
- The Empire’s cricketers by A. Chevallier Tayler (1905)
Picture Gallery
The Library holds a diverse collection of art works which document the history of Newcastle and the Hunter Region. Significant works include the Menzies Commission (1804), Entrance of Coal River, Newcastle by John Lewin (1807) and View of the infirmary, gaol, Harbour Master'sresidence… by Margaret Laidler (1870)
Images from the collection have been included on the Library’s digital image database, Hunter Photo Bank.
