The former Film Australia is celebrating over 60 years of documentary with preview clips online and zero-fee licensing for Australian doco filmakers.

• About the online collection
• Permissions and copyright
• How to search
• Search hints
• APT subject headings
• Additional notes
• The online enquiry process
• Online membership and your search history
• Ordering master copies

The online collection represents a selection of titles from the Screen Australia Library, dating back to the 1890s. Currently, there are more than 21,000 records available online, with new catalogue records and titles being added regularly.

In 2006, we've started adding preview clips in Quicktime format to some records. There are currently more than 1000 clips now online, with hundreds more to be added in coming months.

If you cannot find what you are looking for online, please contact the Screen Australia Library.

Much of the material on this website, including preview clips, is copyright. It is important that you read our Terms and Conditions before using this material in any way.

1. Select:
   EITHER title/synopsis/shot description/location/subject search
   OR a title search only
   OR search APT subject headings
2. In the search terms area, enter words that describe what you want (eg descriptive words, a program title, a filmmaker's name).
• You can use one or more words, or PARTS of words.
• You can use lowercase or capital letters (the search is not case sensitive).
• Do NOT use punctuation such as asterisks (*), quote marks (" "), commas, slashes (/), addition signs (+), question marks or apostrophes, even if they appear within a title.
3. Select the search required - all words, any words or exact phrase.
4. If you wish, you can also select a decade or exclude mute or black-and-white footage from the results.

The results of your search will be displayed as a list of program titles along with specific shots that contain the search term. The search term will be highlighted where it appears.

Clicking on a program title will show you:

• longer program synopsis
• program duration and year
• production company
• key credits
• an option to view the entire shotlist for that program

Clicking on a shot will show you:

• shot description
• decade of shot
• location of shot
• footage details including black-and-white, mute, format, access number

Truncated search terms will broaden your results. For example:

• austra will find Australia, Australian, Australiana
• cat will find cats, catalogue, catalyst, catamaran, caterpillar etc.

To narrow your search, choose subject search only in Search Types or exact phrase or exclude records in Search Terms.

The Screen Australia Library website uses subject headings from the Australian Pictorial Thesaurus (APT). This collection of more than 15,000 topic terms for indexing Australian images uses contemporary Australian terminology to describe objects, people, places and structures, activities and concepts depicted in an image. It ensures the common description of pictorial collections across Australian libraries, museums and archives. For more information, see the APT website.

Because an APT subject heading search will display all related records in the result list, it isn't possible to restrict this search to only those records with Quicktime files.

When searching APT subject headings, clicking a tick box for a term in a result list will automatically select all occurences of that term within the list.

There may be many shot descriptions for longer programs or, in the case of very short programs, only one shot description.

Found shots are those containing the search term. All shots is the full shotlist for the program

The decade of a shot may vary from the year given for the program as archival footage is often included in programs.

Abbreviations used in cataloguing include:

1. Go to our Search the Collection page to search our current catalogue.
2. Use the Add to Enquiry button at the bottom of the page to include any title or shot items to your enquiry. (The number of titles and shots in your enquiry will be displayed on the left hand side of the page.)
3. Select the View Enquiry button to confirm details before finalising.
4. Fill in the form, providing contact details. The comments/special instructions field can be used to request additional information or provide us with extra details about your needs.
5. Click Finalise Enquiry.

We'll then contact you and arrange for preview tapes to be sent.

Online searches and footage enquiries are stored only for a current session. However, if you are logged in as an online member, you can store your search history and current enquiry for as long as you like!

You can register as an online member at any time.

Clients who have already been in contact with the library and are now placing orders for master copies can download then fax the form below.

 Master copy order form (Acrobat PDF file, 100kb)