A companion research guide for the Your Library Online webinar
We have digitised more than 770,000 Library items from our collection, including photographs, maps, 19th-century pamphlets, glass plate negatives and rare artworks on paper.
We also subscribe to a broad range of online databases including many journals articles, ebooks, primary sources, images, media and online tools.
All eresources can be accessed within Library (use our PCs or connect to wifi), and most can be accessed from home with your membership.
Looking for digitised images, maps or primary sources from Victoria's past? Search our catalogue and choose 'online items'.
For out-of-copyright images explore the digital image pool.
Browse Popular digitised collections like the Football Record, Victorian Historical Journal, old Melbourne Directories, Australian Medical Gazette and more.
Databases cover a range of subject areas and content types - ejournals, ebooks, primary sources, essays, images, media and more.
How do you know which ones are best for your area of study? Take a look at our A-Z database list (under SEARCH & DISCOVER) and filter by subject to see our recommendations.
Databases contain ejournals. Ejournals contain articles. Articles are an essential resource for in-depth research on a subject, and can be peer-reviewed for added credibility.
Start with a simple Articles Search through our catalogue. This enables you to easily search across most of our online databases and refine your results (options include peer-reviewed, subject, date range, and more).
Note: not all database content can be found through Articles Search (e.g. IBISWorld reports). More sophisticated searches are best done by going into the individual databases through A-Z databases.
To search through our catalogue enter your keywords and choose 'Articles' from the drop down menu.
You can personalise searches to boost the rankings of results matching your preferred discipline/s. Sign in to your account to save items and searches for future.
News articles have their own search. Within the catalogue choose NEWS ARTICLES from the menu. You can browse collections like major Australian newspapers or enter your keywords to search.
The Library has over 200,000 ebooks for you to read read online or download to read offline for up to seven days.
To get started, visit our Ebookshelf for new or interesting titles (updated monthly). You can see previous highlights on the Ebookshelf Archive.
For how-to instructions and tips, read our Get started guide or watch our video on using ebooks.
We are continually adding ebooks to our catalogue. View ebooks added to our catalogue in the last 3 months.
View Our Online Collections playlist on YouTube.
