About 5000 books, pamphlets and periodicals, over 11,000 paintings, drawings and prints, around 800 maps and over 300 manuscripts mostly published 1770-1900. Largely relating to Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific including Antarctica.

1534 children's books written by Australians, with significant Australian content, or with an Australian as one of the main characters, published between 1813 and 1981. They include novels, short stories, picture books, plays, poetry and non-fiction books.

About 1225 books published in France from the 17th-20th centuries, including the writings of great, popular and minor writers.

Recordings of the music of various language, nationality or region-based communities in Melbourne, 1975-1983, plus oral history interviews with people who lived in the Illawarra region from the 1920s to 1990s,  people involved with the 1989 Newcastle earthquake.

Around 830 books mainly relating to Buddhism, but also to Hinduism, Indian history and Western philosophy, in German, French and English and mostly published 1870–1945.