EXHIBITION EXTENDED: Hearts of Gold

Now running until the end of November (during library operating hours)

This exhibition, curated by the Stanley Atheneaum explores the stories and achievements of women who settled and developed the high country community of Stanley in Northeast Victoria in the nineteenth century.

Cemeteries

People don’t always think of cemeteries when they’re conducting research about a place, but cemeteries hold a myriad of history in their grounds. Cemetery records are invaluable for almost all types of research that have any tie to a place.

We hold records for over 55 cemeteries - available electronically on the library computers as well as numerous books on the subject. These resources of contain photos of headstones and lists of the cemeteries’ inhabitants.

Image © Ellen Coates

Fiction

We have a specialised and often fascinating fiction collection. We actively collection Australian classics to ensure that they are kept as part of our Australian history collection. We also collect titles from the Stella Prize short list and the Miles Franklin longlist and the Victorian Premier’s Literary awards.

We see Australian literature as a key part of the history of Victoria and Australia. Additionally for lovers of mysteries we have a small Australian mystery collection.

The PMI Victorian History Library has more than 30,000 books for loan and a professional information service for our members, we provide a central resource for research into the history of Victoria. We hold many titles that are unavailable elsewhere. It is the only lending collection of its kind in Australia that is available for loan to the general public.

Electronic Databases
Electronic databases are often overlooked, and the PMI’s collection can provide a myriad of information. They range from directories like the Sands and McDougall’s directories which cover addresses in first Melbourne and then Victoria, to hospital indexes, to registries for example cemetery burial registries from a wide variety of Victorian cemeteries, to gazettes for example the police gazette, which covers all sorts of ways that people came into contact with the law. These are just examples of some of these sorts of resources and they can be invaluable as they can give you firsthand primary information.

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