Do any of these slogans or posters ring a bell? Photo: National Library of Australia.
Instead of throwing away the next election pamphlet you find in your mailbox, have you thought about donating it to a record of Australia’s political history?
In its archives, the National Library of Australia stores physical and printed campaign materials, such as pamphlets, t-shirts, badges, posters, corflutes and stickers from electorates and elections across Australia.
The NLA is currently requesting submissions of materials from the 2025 election.
Curator Jennifer Selby said the content, which librarians call ‘ephemera’, opened a window into Australia at each federal election since 1901.
“It’s an incredibly rich, historic collection that really tracks Australia’s social and political life and lets people look at the rise and fall of policies, issues, parties and individual people’s careers throughout that period of 124 years [since Federation].
“Every three years we get this broad snapshot of Australian social and political history [through the material] – on its own that’s fascinating,” she said.
“As part of this larger group [of a] really rich research collection, it is even more fascinating.”
Once the material is posted to the NLA, conservators review its condition and catalogue it.
“We’re looking for clean, original material. If it’s larger than postable size, there’s an email address on the website so we can chat about what they have to offer and how we can get it to us.”
While submissions are welcomed from across Australia, curators are seeking material from rural and remote communities, as well as culturally and linguistically diverse and First Nations communities.
“We’re the National Library, and it’s our job to represent the whole of Australia,” she said.
“Our aim is to collect items from every federal electorate, as well as every candidate, party and lobby groups during this federal election campaign, to make sure we’re capturing and archiving all the stories and issues that are important in this election and to the voters of Australia.”
This doesn’t look like our modern election ads. Photo: National Library of Australia.
Ms Selby said the collection showed changes to political advertising – after all, long gone are the days of black-and-white ads.
“The colourful material didn’t really start showing up until around the 1950s, [and] obviously we’ve got a lot of different types of material,” she said.
“Corflutes are plastic, and a lot of the material [in modern material] is A4 glossy paper, really colourful.”
The collection is also currently being digitised, meaning people don’t need to visit the NLA to see what its ephemera collection contains.
Researchers and academics of various stripes can search through the material.
“When we’re talking about the hot issues of the day, and we think about things like the cost of living, environment, education, housing, so many of those sorts of issues you’ll see as really hot issues from 40 years ago,” she said.
“This collection really traces the history of some of these issues and shows how far we’ve come with some, or how far we have yet to come.”
Ms Selby said that while the NLA’s appeal focuses on printed material, there are avenues to achieve digital and online material.
“Generally, our colleagues at the National Film and Sound Archive are looking at some of those new media – like YouTube and podcasts and things – where we’re focusing more on the web archiving [of material],” she said.
The federal election will be held on 3 May.
Submissions of ephemera will be accepted until several weeks after election day. Visit the NLA to learn more, or email [email protected].
Original Article published by Claire Sams on Region Canberra.
