Card Catalogues
Published Catalogues
York Gate Library
The York Gate Library component which contains many of the Library’s rare
books and manuscripts is largely included in the 1886 published catalogue
compiled by Edward Augustus Petherick (1847-1917)
Catalogue of the York Gate Library formed by Mr. S. William Silver: an
index to the literature of geography, maritime and inland discovery,
commerce and colonisation. Second edition. London, J. Murray,
1886.
About 1700 books and manuscripts added to the York Gate Library between 1886
and 1905 (when the library was purchased by the Society) are listed in
manuscript form. (RGSSA MS YG )
Manuscripts
A catalogue was compiled by Phyllis Mander-Jones in 1981; Catalogue of
the manuscripts in the Library of the Royal Geographical Society of
Australasia (South Australian Branch). Adelaide, the Society, 1981.
This catalogue available on our website along with its supplement.
Many books classed as ‘non-Australiana’ and published after 1800 are
currently only accessible via a card catalogue. Many pamphlets are also only
catalogued on cards. Both these catalogues are gradually being added to the
national database and to our in-house online catalogue.
Maps are only accessible via a card catalogue.
Electronic Catalogues
Most of the RGS Library’s Australiana collection and rare books (‘specials’) are
included in the catalogue of the State Library of South Australia (about 7,000
titles). (http://www.catalog.slsa.sa.gov.au/screens/opacmenu.html).
The call number is preceded by ‘RGS’.
If you type in the words 'York Gate ' in a keyword search at this site a
listing of many of the Society's Australiana and rare books can be obtained.
(The York Gate Library was purchased by the Society in 1905)
The Society recently joined the national cataloguing system (Libraries
Australia) in its own right and has begun adding the first of about 10,000
additional items to the national database. The newly added items will not
appear on the State Library’s catalogue but are available on Libraries Australia
(http://librariesaustralia.nla.gov.au/apps/kss)
and on an in-house computer catalogue. In the next year or so we hope to add our
catalogue to our website.
