School programs and guided tours in 2009 and 2010
Understanding the Library introductory programs

Combination tour: exhibition and library orientation
- for: Years 5 - 7
- availability: Monday to Friday 10am - 4pm
- bookings: yes, with a minimum of three weeks notice required, during exhibition periods only
- cost: free
- duration: 75 minutes
- group size: max 60
A jam-packed tour exploring all there is to see, including a look behind-the-scenes look at the Library combined with an interpretation of historical items on display in the Library's exhibition spaces. Discover the Library's role, the treasures it collects, and the changing technologies it uses to manage its collections.
Stacks of Stories: library orientation tour
- for: Years 5 - 7
- availability: Monday to Friday 9am - 5pm
- bookings: yes, with a minimum of two weeks notice required
- cost: free
- duration: 60 minutes
- group size: max 30
Canberra's best discovery trail leads primary school students through areas of the Library out of bounds to the public. See the old tube room, maps and newspaper stacks, book-moving robots and a giant compactus. Read the State and Territory Curriculum outcomes.
Night at the Library
- for: Years 5 - 7
- availability: Monday to Thursday 5pm - 7pm
- bookings: yes, with a minimum of three weeks notice required
- cost: $2 per student
- duration: 60 minutes
- group size: max 35
The National Library operates around the clock: visit subterranean spaces to learn about secret librarians business, ghoulish collection items and our resident ghost. Senior school groups can combine a tour with study time in the Main Reading Room. The option exists to combine this tour with a School Screen viewing (depending on your group size).
Online and Underground
- for: Years 8 - 12
- availability: Monday to Friday 9am - 5pm.
- bookings: yes, with a minimum of two weeks notice required
- cost: free
- duration: 70 minutes
- group size: max 40
Students discover the Library's online services to find images, music and text, and to access global information-sharing resources. Examine digital preservation, digitised collections and material in the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme. Read the State and Territory curriculum outcomes.
Thirst for knowledge: research skills workshop
- for: Years 11 - 12 only, tertiary
- availability: weekdays, 9am - 5pm.
- bookings: yes, with a minimum of three weeks notice required
- cost: free
- duration: 50 minutes
- group size: max 40
An advanced program emphasising the use of resources and collections held by the National Library. Reference librarians will assist students explore the extensive collection through use of the catalogue, online services and electronic databases. If your group is intending to use the Library’s collection for in-depth research projects this class will help them achieve a better result. Please ensure students have become readers using the online form prior to arrival. Subject to availability.
Essential Learning tailored programs
Curriculum-based programs are tailored for Years 5 to 12, using the Library's exhibitions, collections and reading rooms as a starting point to find out more about Australian history and culture. Students critically interpret texts to understand local, regional and international historical and contemporary events and issues.

To speak to an educator about tailoring a visit to suit your school, contact us on 02 6262 1289 or email education@nla.gov.au
Exhibition Tour: Nick Cave The Exhibition
- for: tailored for Years 5 - 12
- availability: weekdays, 9am - 5pm until Friday 27 November 2009
- bookings: yes, with a minimum of one weeks notice required
- cost: free
- duration: 45 minutes
- group size: max 35
This exhibition takes students behind the music and into the imagination of iconic Australian musician, songwriter and author Nick Cave. Students discover the importance of research and learning for a creative artist, made clear in Cave's unique vision through original lyrics, notebooks, art, photography and personal library. Learn more about Nick Cave before you visit here.
Exhibition Tour: The Dunera Boys
- for: tailored for Years 5 - 12
- availability: weekdays, 9am - 5pm available Monday 15 February until Friday 25 June 2010
- bookings: yes, with a minimum of one weeks notice required
- cost: free
- duration: 45 minutes
- group size: max 35
An event Churchill later called ‘a deplorable mistake’, this exhibition traces the harsh treatment of 2,500 German and Austrian ‘enemy aliens’ – some Jewish refugees, some Nazis – transferred from England to rural Australian internment camps in 1940. Students will discover how the story of post-war immigration to Australia has been recorded in the Library's archives.
Cool Librarians
- for: Years 2 - 3
- availability: weekdays, 9am - 5pm
- bookings: yes, with a minimum of two weeks notice required
- cost: free
- duration: 60 minutes
- group size: max 35
Meet Prue Theroux the very cool librarian, find out what a Dewey decimal is, catalogue a collection and discover all the things librarians do in Australia's biggest library.
Adventure in the South Pacific!
- for: Years 3 - 6
- availability: weekdays, 9am - 5pm, from Term 3, 2009
- bookings: yes, with a minimum of two weeks notice required
- cost: free
- duration: 60 minutes
- group size: max 35
All aboard to discover the famous story of HMB Endeavour 1768 -1770, through stories, games, and the help of characters such as James Cook, Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander. Cooperation and teamwork, good leadership, an inspiring vision, or harsh discipline - what factors led to such a successful voyage of discovery?
Bushrangers Get Booked
- for: Years 3 - 6
- availability: weekdays, 9am - 5pm from Term 3, 2009
- bookings: yes, with a minimum of two weeks notice required
- cost: free
- duration: 60 minutes
- group size: max 35
Stories of heroes and villains, stagecoach hold-ups and narrow escapes are recorded in the Library's collection. See Ned Kelly's wanted poster, Ben Hall's revolver, and Captain Moonlite's lantern, students will gather some evidence to help re-enact the moments of crime!
Mapping History
- for: primary & secondary
- availability: weekdays, 9am - 5pm from Term 2, 2009
- bookings: yes, with a minimum of two weeks notice required
- cost: free
- duration: 60 minutes
- group size: max 35
Students explore the role of the map in our society: as a source of information, beauty, and sometimes deception. Discover maps, not only as geographic documents, but as historic objects evidence of social and political ideology. View the current display of maps in Far-Sited: the maps that made Canberra.
