Today marks the 25th anniversary of the Library’s digitisation program. From lantern slides and glass negatives to maps, posters and sheet music, our team have made more than two million files available to search, view and download online since the program began on 17 August 1990.
To celebrate a quarter of a century of digitisation, we recently launched the digital image pool, a new online resource to help you easily find images from the Library’s collection that are free of copyright restrictions. Dive in and discover almost 200,000 images, free to reuse, remix or repurpose in any way you like.
Below, we’ve selected some of our favourite images from the last 25 years, each one corresponding to the year it was digitised from 1990–2015. You can find these, and more, in our digital image pool. Enjoy!
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995

Giant Tree, 80 ft. 6 ins, in circumference, near Foster, ca. 1900–1909. Pater, W. T. postcard series
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000

The Arctic Stream’s non paying passengers in their strange surroundings, ca. 1885 and 1946. Brodie Collection, La Trobe Picture Collection
2001
2002

Women of the Australian Women’s Land Army at work, ca. 1941–1943. Collection: Argus newspaper collection of war photographs. World War II
2003

Sandy Mac Dougal, 86 years old, oldest man in Harrietville, 1945. Herald & Weekly Times Limited portrait collection
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
Amazing imagery, what a collection!
Looking forward to accessing those 200,000 images too
fabulous collection beautifully assembled
thanks Sarah
Thanks Ross!
Absolutely fascinating Sarah, and such an amazing variety! Thank you.
re 2007 Horse drawn wagon on country track, ca. 1910–1930. Photo: Albert Jones – there are so many trees either dead or dying, one wonders why?
Loved them all – although I had a time finding the site – glad I persevered. Do you know why it has changed?
Susan Nicholas – Could be the result of bushfire – I am only going from what the trees looked like after touring the countryside after major bushfires. They all have that rather blasted look. I think the are called ghost gums. Might have been after the 1930’s bushfires?