Open Digitisation Partnership Program

The State Library’s unrivalled collections comprise over 6.3 million items including photographs, paintings, drawings, printed and talking books, architectural plans, maps, newspapers, microfilm and microfiche, oral histories, films and videos, computer software and other objects. The collection is large, diverse, and highly valued and used by many, including students, academics, researchers and the creative industries.

Under the Digital Excellence Program, the NSW Government has contributed significant funds to help fast track the Library’s digitisation program and to upgrade its digital infrastructure. Since 2012, the Library has embarked on a 10-year digitisation strategy that will help cement the Library's status as a world-leading library and centre for digital excellence. The Library is digitising our iconic, at risk, and highly valued collections to make them accessible online. Digital material is being created and preserved on a scale never before seen in Australia.

Despite this massive effort, the sheer size of the collection means a large portion of this extensive material may never be digitised. In order to respond to the increasing requests for more of the collection to be made available online, the Library has established the Open Digitisation Partnership Program.

The Open Digitisation Partnership Program will assist the State Library to digitise collection items that may otherwise remained undigitised. The Program enables the Library to enter into agreements with external partners who wish to propose and digitise parts of the State Library collection. The partnership arrangement will in turn allow the Library’s partners to generate a return on their digitisation investment.

The Library continues to support the principle that digital conversion does not create new copyright. Any materials digitised under the Open Digitisation Partnership Program must either be free from copyright restrictions, or have copyright permissions obtained by the digitising Partner.

The Open Digitisation Partnership Program will be accepting Requests for Proposal from August 2018 for review during the subsequent two months.  After that date, respondents may submit a proposal or multiple proposals at any time with review dates to be determined.

More information about the Open Digitisation Partnership Program is available from