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Library's Offsite Collections Available from May

Retrieval of all material stored in the State Library of Victoria’s offsite collection will resume from 8 May 2006.

The offsite collection consists of hard-copy newspapers, bound serials and magazines (mostly pre-1976), some patents and trademarks and some Australian manuscripts. It has been unavailable since September 2005 while it was being prepared and moved into a new purpose-built storage facility in Ballarat.

Deliveries will be made Monday to Friday. Material requested by 5.30pm from Sunday to Thursday will be available at 10am the next day. Material requested on Friday and Saturday will be available on Monday. During May, retrievals of serials will require an additional 24 hours.

The Library catalogue indicates if material is stored offsite. You can request, collect and read offsite collection material as follows:

Newspapers

- Request at the Newspaper Reading Room desk
- Collect and read in the Heritage Collections Reading Room

Serials, magazines, patents and trademarks

- Request at the Information Centre desk
- Collect from the Book Desk

Manuscripts

- Request at the La Trobe Reading Room desk.
- Collect and read in the Heritage Collections Reading Room.

Demand for the offsite collection is likely to be high initially, and the Library may need to limit the volume of material brought in on any one day.

The Library thanks users for their patience while the offsite collection was unavailable.

For more information about ordering material, please contact us on 03 8664 7002 or inquire using the Ask-A-Librarian form.