The Royal Society of New South Wales Collection is an important part of Australia’s heritage. It contains journals and monographs acquired, bequeathed or donated during the course of the scientific and intellectual development of the country and it reflects this in its contents.

Since the 1980s, the Society has not owned premises and has been reliant on space provided first by Macquarie University and then the University of Sydney.  Unfortunately, the space was not sufficient to house the Society’s substantial collection of books and other artefacts.  Much of the original library (about 40,000 volumes mainly comprised of runs of journals) was donated to the Dixson Library at the University of New England in the 1980s. 

In 2023, the Society resolved to donate the remaining collection to the State Library of NSW in return for a long-term strategic collaboration and pro bono resources.  This ensured that the Collection that is of substantial historical importance will be conserved, catalogued and available to the public for research.

The Collection is very valuable and includes many historically significant documents (e.g., correspondence from Charles Darwin), photographs, lantern slides, drawings, and medals.  The Collection is expected to become generally available within the next two years and currently may be accessed by special arrangement with the State Library of NSW.

When the Philosophical Society of Australasia was founded in 1821, each member furnished the secretary with an alphabetical catalogue of the books in his (they were all male) private library, and these were available on loan to other members.  At that stage the Society had no journal, but some of the papers read were included in a book edited by Barron Field, one of its members, and published in London 1825.

In 1875, nine years after the Society first published its own journal, it began to exchange publications with other scientific organizations on a world-wide basis and a small library and reading-room was established at 5 Elizabeth Street, Sydney.  However, the space available was inadequate, and it was only after the Society moved to Science House in Gloucester Street in 1931 that the books and periodicals could be arranged systematically on shelves in a large specially designed room.

By 1960, the library consisted of some 40,000 volumes and the exchange list contained about 400 names.  In 1980, the library had grown further still and the exchange list comprised more than 600 names.  During this period it withstood its wholesale move from Science House to a dedicated space in the new Science Centre at 35 Clarence Street.  The collection included a number of rare volumes and some of the periodicals were unobtainable in any other Australian library.  By 1983 it was no longer possible to house the collection in Sydney and the bulk of it, including all the exchange journals, was loaned to the Dixson Library at the University of New England as one of its Special Collections, with monographs housed in a dedicated “Royal Society” room.