The National Library of Australia (NLA) is the largest reference library in Australia, responsible under the terms of the National Library Act for "maintaining and developing a national collection of library material, including a comprehensive collection of library material relating to Australia and the Australian people." In 2012–13, the National Library collection comprised 6,496,772 items, and an additional 15,506 metres (50,873 ft) of manuscript material. It is located in Parkes, Canberra, ACT.

The National Library of Australia, while formally established by the passage of the National Library Act 1960 (Cth), had been functioning as a national library rather than strictly a Parliamentary Library, almost since its inception.

The present library building was opened on 15 August 1968 by Prime Minister John Gorton. The building was designed by the architectural firm of Bunning and Madden in the Late Twentieth Century Stripped Classical style. The foyer is decorated in marble, with stained-glass windows by Leonard French and three tapestries by Mathieu Mategot. The building was listed on the Australian Commonwealth Heritage List on 22 June 2004.

In 2012–13 the Library collection comprised 6,496,772 items, with an estimated additional 2,325,900 items held in the manuscripts collection. The Library's collections of Australiana have developed into the nation's single most important resource of materials recording the Australian cultural heritage. Australian writers, editors and illustrators are actively sought and well represented—whether published in Australia or overseas.

The Library's collection includes all formats of material, from books, journals, websites and manuscripts to pictures, photographs, maps, music, oral history recordings, manuscript papers and ephemera.

Approximately 92.1% of the Library's collection has been catalogued and is discoverable through the online catalogue.

The Library has digitized over 174,000 items from its collection (the 100,000th being "Feeding cotton seed to sheep, Bourke, New South Wales") and, where possible, delivers these directly across the Internet. The Library is a world leader in digital preservation techniques, and maintains an Internet-accessible archive of selected Australian websites called the Pandora Archive.

The Library collects material produced by Australians, for Australians or about the Australian experience in all formats-not just printed works-books, serials, newspapers, maps, posters, music and printed ephemera-but also online publications and unpublished material such as manuscripts, pictures and oral histories. A core Australiana collection is that of John A. Ferguson. The Library has particular collection strengths in the performing arts, including dance.

The Library's considerable collections of general overseas and rare book materials, as well as world-class Asian and Pacific collections which augment the Australiana collections. The print collections are further supported by extensive microform holdings.

The Library also maintains the National Reserve Braille Collection.

The Library has also acquired the records of many national non-governmental organisations. They include the records of the Federal Secretariats of the Liberal party, the A.L.P, the Democrats, the R.S.L., the Australian Inland Mission, the Australian Union of Students, The Australian Ballet, the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust, the Australian Institute of Urban Studies, Australian Industries Protection League, the Australian Conservation Foundation, and the Australian Council of National Trusts. Finally, the Library holds about 37,000 reels of microfilm of manuscripts and archival records, mostly acquired overseas and predominantly of Australian and Pacific interest.

National Library of Wales General Manuscript Collection

NLW MS 20143, Ancient laws and institutions in Wales сLeges Wallicae Saec 13[sic]т, is a fourteenth century text of the Welsh Laws, known as Siglum Y. This calf bound volume has the unusual feature of marginalia drawings, mostly religious, including shield, a mermaid, evangelist-symbols and, the crucifixion with the Virgin Mary and John. The Boston Manuscript of the Laws of Hywel Dda is also in the General Manuscript Collection (NLW MS 24029).

The Additional Manuscripts are those donated to the National Library of Wales by Sir John Williams that are not part of either the Peniarth or Llanstephan collections. These manuscripts are the first five hundred in the General Collection (NLW 1-500), of which 1-446 were catalogued by John Humphreys Davies, Principal of the University College of Wales in Aberystwyth, in Additional manuscripts in the collections of Sir John Williams.

The Black Book of Basingwerk is a Welsh language text of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae, the latter section was written by Gutun Owain, who was associated with Basingwerk Abbey, in the fifteenth century.

The manuscripts from John Lloyd's library at Wigfair is rich in autograph letters from the late sixteenth century through to the mid-nineteenth century. The earliest letters are those written in Welsh by the poet Sion Tudur and there are many letters addressed to Lloyd during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by well known correspondents including seventy letters from the President of the Royal Society, Sir Joseph Banks. Other letters were sent by the diarist R. F. Greville, Sir William Herschel, Jonas Dryander, Sir George Shuckburgh-Evelyn, Astronomer Royal Nevil Maskelyne, Sir Henry Engefield, Sir Charles Blagden, Sir John Rennie, Samuel Lysons, Thomas Pennant, Philip Yorke, Dean Shipley, Daines Barrington, Gwallter Mechain and a number of bishops.