A guide to saving citations and creating bibliographies from the State Library catalogue.
State Library Victoria (SLV) holds many collections of material in many formats. Some collection types will need to be treated differently in your citations.
As a general rule, it is not necessary to mention SLV when you are citing standard published items such as reference books, journals or newspapers. People reading your citations will be able to find these published works from a number of different repositories, such as their local public library, or academic library. In these cases, the most important thing is that you are referencing your work in a uniform fashion, using one of the Citation Styles mentioned elsewhere in this guide.
The Library also holds many heritage collections, such as maps, pictures, manuscripts, and rare books. Many of these collections are hard to find, or are unique to SLV. In this case, readers of your work who are interested in your sources will need to know that the items are held at SLV, and will need as much guidance as possible to find the items themselves in our catalogue.
If you have accessed an item in the Heritage Collections Reading Room, or you are citing an item that has been digitised on the SLV catalogue, chances are you are citing a heritage collection item.
The information that you will need to cite may be different for each category. See below for more information about what to include, and where to look for it in our catalogue.
Common heritage collections include:
You can tell that you are looking at an item from one of our Manuscripts collections by the Availability Statement. This will tell you to "arrange delivery from Manuscripts Collection". You can see this in the below example:
This remains the case, even if the item itself is a picture. The below record is for a picture, but the Availability Statement still specifies the "Manuscript Collection":
You may also locate Finding Aid entries in the catalogue. An example of one of these is below:
To check if the item in the finding aid is from the Manuscripts Collection, click Available Online to be taken to the online finding aid. Under Repository Details you will see "part of the Australian Manuscripts Collection" :
The information that you will need for your citation, including the title, author, and date, will be contained under the Details heading of the catalogue record. Ensure that you are using the correct details for your citation.
Even though many of us refer to the below item as "The Jerilderie Letter", note that the official title in our catalogue is different. Take this information from the Title field of the Details heading of the catalogue record:
Items in the Manuscript Collections are given an accession number, and sometimes a collection identifier. These can be found in the Identifier(s) field of the catalogue record, under the Details heading. This number will not change over time, and is therefore the most useful way for someone to trace a specific item in one of these collections. You can treat this like a reference number.
If you see an accession number and/or collection identifier in your resource, please use it in your citation.
Examples:
Kelly, N., Byrne, J., & Living, E. (1879). Letter written by Joe Byrne at the dictation of Ned Kelly. MS 13361. Australian Manuscripts Collection, State Library Victoria.
Coles supermarkets recipts, (1994). COMY10543, Coles memorabilia, family material and photographs, MS 13468/21. Records of Coles Myer Ltd. and its predecessors, Australian Manuscripts Collection, State Library Victoria.
If you are dealing with a large manuscript collection, it may also be appropriate to cite the exact location of a specific document, such as a box and/or folder number - for instance: YMS 13168, Box 76. This is not technically required, but will assist future researchers who wish to access the material.
You can tell that we are looking at an item from one of our Pictures collections by the Availability Statement. This will tell you to "arrange delivery from Pictures Collection".
Note that some items which are pictures may be found in the Manuscripts collection, or other named collections.
The information that you will need for your citation, including the title, author, and date, will be contained under the Details heading of the catalogue record. Ensure that you are also using the correct details for your citation.
Some pictures may also be part of a named collection. If there is a Cite As field in your record, please include the information provided in your citation (see the box on Named Collections).
Items in Pictures collections are given an accession number. These can be found in the Identifier(s) field of the catalogue record, under the Details heading. This number will not change over time, and is therefore the most useful way for someone to trace a specific item in one of these collection. You can treat this like a reference number.
If you see an accession number in your resource, please use it in your citation.
Example:
Talma & Co., (1906). Miss Eugenie Duggan, H98.56/22. Pictures Collection, State Library Victoria.
Some of our Pictures collection items have been grouped together under one catalogue record. In the example below there are six accession numbers, relating to the top-level record and its five contents:
To view the individual images, select Click to find digital items(s) in the Related items field. You will see a list of the images attached to the group:
You can then choose your specific image from the resulting list, and find the relevant Accession number it the catalogue record, under Details:
Conabere, E., (1982). Magpies, H2012.122/8D. Pictures Collection, State Library Victoria.
Some of our heritage items form parts of named collections. When citing items from these collections, it is best practice to cite the collection itself - as well as State Library Victoria - as the souce of the item.
Some of the collections will be listed in the Availability Statement. The below picture tells you to "arrange delivery from the Alma Collection". This is the W.G. Alma Conjuring Collection:
Note that not all named collections will be listed here. Some may be part of the Manuscripts or Pictures collections. Check the Cite As field below.
When named collections are required to be mentioned in a citation, we have made this clear in the catalogue record by including a Cite As field under the Details heading. If a Cite As field in present, please include it in your citation.
Example:
Also note the Accession Number in the above record. Therefore we can cite the above as:
Kemp, R., (1937). Just another one of those tricks. P176/PC.1. W.G. Alma conjuring collection - photographs, State Library Victoria.
Example:
The below record is part of our Pictures Collection:
However, when you open the full record you can see that there is a Cite As field present:
Also note the multiple Accession Numbers in the Identifier(s) field in the example above. Follow the instructions for Large Pictures Collections to find the correct Accession Number.
We could therefore cite the above as:
Argus (Melbourne, Vic), (ca.1940-1945?), Parachute training. H99201.2202. Argus Newspaper Collection of Photographs, State Library Victoria.
Items in named collections are often given an accession number. If so, these can be found in the Identifier(s) field of the catalogue record, under the Details heading. This number will not change over time, and is therefore the most useful way for someone to trace a specific item in one of these collections. You can treat this like a reference number.
If you see an Accession number in your resource, please use it in your citation.
You are welcome to copy material or order copies from the Library's collections and re-use these materials provided you meet the requirements of the Australian Copyright Act 1968 and any special requirements that may apply to material that is rare, unique or culturally sensitive.
Generally speaking, you do not need to seek copyright permission when reproducing material for the purpose of research, study, criticism, review, parody, satire, reporting the news, or giving legal advice. Other instances where you do not need to seek copyright permission include if a work has been made freely available without copyright restriction (for example, under a Creative Commons licence), if copyright has expired, or if copyright never applied.
Where material can be used without permission, you should still cite the author/creator of the work (use the table on this page to help you), and State Library Victoria as the source. Find out more about Understanding Copyright at SLV.
Knowing whether or not something is in copyright can be complicated. Read about understanding copyright and useful copyright resources on our website for more information, or read the fact sheets available on the Australian Copyright Council's website.
Items in SLV's picture collections will generally include a copyright statement in the catalogue record, under Details. In the below example, you can see that the work is out of copyright and there are no additional conditions for use:
In the next example the work is still in copyright, and copyright restrictions apply to usage:
More detail about the copyright of an image can be found in the image viewer when you view the item online (select Link to Online Resource). Click the Download icon at the bottom right corner of the image that you are interested in for more information:
A copyright statement such as this will appear:
For more information about the copyright holder of an image, contact copyright@slv.vic.gov.au, or Ask a Librarian.
Architectural collections can sometimes be incredibly complex. They are generally held in our Pictures collections, but may also be held as part of a larger Manuscript collection. Check the instructions for both Pictures and Manuscripts and include as much information as applicable. Check for Accession numbers or Job Numbers of individual plans, to make specific items findable within a collection that may be quite large. Job numbers may be listed in the Summary field of the record, or in a finding aid.
Items from the Maps collection are often published items that are also available elsewhere. The title and year of the map is generally enough information to find it again.
Cite the map as you would a non-heritage item, but include:
"Maps Collection, State Library Victoria."
Example:
Township of Kangaroo Flat, Parish of Sandhurst, County of Bendigo [cartographic material]. (1981). Victoria, Division of Survey and Mapping. Maps Collection, State Library Victoria.
Many items in the Rare Books collection are published works, and can be cited as regular books. You may add "Rare Books collection, State Library Victoria" to the end of your citation, so people know where the book can be found. This is particularly useful if the book is extremely hard to come by.
There are too many kinds of heritage items to give examples for each. The important thing to remember is to make sure that you give enough information to enable someone to trace your sources.
Take the below political ephemera file:
The Availability Statement specifies that you will need to view the item in the Heritage Collections Reading Room, so it is most likely a heritage item.
There's not a lot of information under the Details heading of the record, but we can see the title, the date, and the Series name. This is enough information for someone to be able to find the resource on their own.
Therefore, we can reference the file as:
Political ephemera relating to Australia. Politics and Government, 1987. (1987-). Riley and ephemera collection, State Library Victoria.
