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Digital-first collections

Our collection was established in 1961 and has grown to one of the largest in Australia. We have comprehensive coverage across disciplines. We are proud to maintain special collections of national and international significance.

At a glance

There are over 6.7 million items in our collection, including:

Over 4 million electronic resources
2.56 million physical items
300,000 electronic and bound journals
1,824 databases

Collection Strategy

Find out about our collection strategy and the approach taken to develop and manage our collection.

We have had a digital-first purchasing policy in place since 2016. This means we always try to source electronic titles where possible.
This e-preferred approach provides more equitable access for Monash staff, students and researchers. It allows us to offer more resources, 24/7 access and support to those working or studying from Monash’s five international locations.
Physical items – including books and journals – are distributed across our six libraries. To optimise our spaces, some lesser-used materials are held off-site.
Where required, Australian-based staff and students can request items delivered to their preferred location.
Our special collections are held in climate-controlled spaces. They can be viewed in our Special Collections Reading Room, at the Matheson Library.
We manage – and grow – our collections based on the needs of Monash staff and students.
We leverage our systems to understand and predict needs and ensure we maximise Monash’s return on investment. This means we:
- Provision copyright-compliant resources listed in Leganto – the Monash-wide platform for readings.
- Set up our systems to enable a user-driven approach to acquisitions, where appropriate. This means when people download a resource listed in Search, it is made instantly available.
- Work closely with publishers, using data to negotiate agreements and manage complex licences.
- Facilitate interlibrary loans from other libraries or a new purchase request where materials are not held in the Monash collections.
We collaborate with other institutions and participate in industry-wide initiatives as part of our commitment to manage and preserve print and digital collections.
Our partnerships include:
- CAVAL Shared Collection: An Australia-wide initiative that ensures important works are preserved and accessible
- HathiTrust: An international partnership of academic and research institutions that has digitally preserved more than 18M items. These are available through our Library Search tool.
- Portico: A community-supported archive that safeguards access to e-journals, e-books and digital collections.
We closely work with other libraries and have robust resource-sharing arrangements to support greater access to global collections.