Local History Rooms
Visit our specialist local history collections at the East Melbourne and North Melbourne Library.
Here, you'll find computers dedicated to local and family history research with access to resources not available online;
as well as high resolution scanners for digitising negatives, photographs and slides.
Rooms and computers
Contact us to book a local history computer at :
- East Melbourne Library
- North Melbourne Library
- Library at the Dock
Computer resources
- Books
- Digitised rare books 1835 to 1987 covering Victorian history
- First-hand accounts of early settlement, prominent people and town life
- Directories
- Directories from 1839 to 1942, useful for property and people research
- Sands & McDougall Directories (full set)
- Lists surnames, addresses and professions
- Rate Books
- City of Melbourne rate books 1843 to 1975
- Includes details of owner, occupier, number of rooms and more
- Property
- Crown land licenses 1853 and 1856
- Land tax register and valuation 1888
- People
- Genealogy and family history records and indexes from 1788 to 1985
- Digger indexes: Births, deaths, marriages, inquests, immigration, The Argus newspaper
- Indexes to divorce, insolvency, criminal records, pubs and publicans
- Commonwealth public service list, parliamentary papers, record and trades register
- Melbourne General Cemetery headstone transcriptions, biography and more
- Gazettes
- Gazettes from 1847 to 1915
- Official public journals (often published by government) announcing formal, legal decisions and actions
- Melbourne Street Card Index
- City of Melbourne’s internal street card index
- Documents street name changes, dates and sometimes origins
- Organised alphabetically, includes recent changes
- Military
- Records of war service, memorials, indexes 1895 to 1919