About us
Picture Australia is an Internet based service that allows you to search many significant online pictorial collections at the same time. When you do a search on Picture Australia, thumbnail images are retrieved from participating institutions on the fly and inserted into the search results.
For example, a search on 'St Kilda' will retrieve images from all the agencies that hold relevant material, including the Nolan Gallery, the National Library of New Zealand, the National Archives of Australia, the State Library of Victoria, etc.
In your search results you will see sets of 'thumbnail' or preview images. When you click on one of these you will go to the web site of the relevant agency to view the full-size version and you can order a high-resolution copy if required. You can move between Picture Australia and the participating agencies' web sites using the BACK button in your web browser.
The Picture Australia marketing plan 2008 - 2010 sets out directions and goals for staff and Picture Australia members to follow in promoting the site. PDF (112kb)
What images can you find through Picture Australia?
Picture Australia provides access to images that cover all aspects of Australiana:
- Artworks include paintings, drawings, prints and posters of abstract art, fine art and portraits
- Photographs capture people, places and events
- Objects include sculpture, scrimshaw, bark, costume, weapons
- Images may be in black and white or full colour.
There are some items that will not be found in Picture Australia. These include:
- Contemporary items that are restricted by copyright from display and textual items, unless the text forms part of an artifact
- Maps and manuscripts, however photographs of maps may be included
- Video or audio clips, although an individual frame of a video, presented as a picture, may be included.
An indication of the subject areas included in Picture Australia can be found by reading about each agency's contribution to the service.
While a lot of information exists for images that are not yet online, it is not included for searching in Picture Australia. However, it is available for searching on the contributing agencies' own web sites.
Joining Picture Australia
Do you have an image collection that you would like to increase access to and awareness of? Cultural agencies continue to join Picture Australia, finding new audiences for their collections and adding to the national and international picture of our heritage. If you are interested please read the For Contributors section for an overview of how the service works and how your collection may be included. Alternatively, contact us for more information.
How Picture Australia works
Picture Australia is an internet based discovery service that helps you find what digitised images cultural agencies hold in their collections. Click on a 'thumbnail' image and you will go to the web site of the relevant agency to view the full-size version were you can order a high-resolution copy if required. When you do a search on Picture Australia, thumbnail images are retrieved from participating institutions on the fly and inserted into the search results. You can move between Picture Australia and the participating agencies' web sites using the BACK button in your web browser.
The diagram below outlines the request sequence. This is also available as a PDF.
Opensearch
Picture Australia also supports Open search format, which means that you can search Picture Australia from aggregator websites, such as A9.com, or if you’re using the latest versions of firefox or Internet Explorer, you can search Picture Australia from the search box in your browser. The National Library of Australia is encouraging Australian collecting institutions to support the OpenSearch protocol through its federated search project.
Disclaimer
The National Library of Australia makes no warranties in respect of Picture Australia and is not liable in any way whatsoever for the failure or functioning of Picture Australia.