Newspapers, genealogy records & rare items

Newspaper Reading Room

Looking for the newspaper article that announced the end of the Gangland War? The Newspaper Reading Room contains close to 100,000 newspaper volumes – almost every newspaper published in Victoria since 1882, as well as interstate and international newspapers. Recent newspapers are available in hard copy format, and older editions on microfilm, CD-ROM and online.

Genealogy Centre

Just around the corner is the Genealogy Centre, the starting point for any research about family history. Here you can find civil registration records, cemetery and immigration records, electoral rolls, indexes for births, deaths and marriages and more than 4000 online databases.

You can find records from Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, and Victorian records relating to Italian, Vietnamese, Chinese and Jewish cultures.

Heritage Reading Room

The Heritage Reading Room is the place to go to view rare books, manuscripts, maps and pictures. Because these special items are so fragile and valuable, they're only accessible to users who have completed secondary school. However, most items are now available online, so you can still access them.

If, once you've finished secondary school, you do want to view these items up close and personal, you need to request them online or at the La Trobe Reading Room desk, because they're stored offsite. The item will then be brought to the Heritage Reading Room, and you'll be given gloves to wear to protect them while you read.