• Current publications
• Australian Government Publishing Services (AGPS) publications
• Older and out of print publications
• Commonwealth copyright

Current publications

Australian Government agencies are active online publishers. To ensure that the searchable index is as complete as possible, australia.gov.au indexes all content found on Australian Government websites. The search also includes a catalogue of Australian Government publications held by Australian libraries.

This Australian libraries catalogue, kindly provided by the National Library of Australia, allows users to find libraries that have copies of current and older Australian Government publications that they are seeking.

Search results for library items are directed to the item's Trove record.

Australian Government Publishing Service (AGPS) publications

The Australian Government Publishing Service (AGPS) operated from July 1970 to 1997 and had overall responsibilities for Australian Government publishing and printing. In October 1997 the production facilities of AGPS, including the Government Printing Office, were sold to CanPrint Communications Pty Limited. Printing, publishing and distribution then became the responsibility of each individual department or agency.

Unless stocks were retained by the author agencies or the titles were later republished by those agencies, titles published by the AGPS or the AGPS Press are no longer in print.

Older and out of print publications

If copies of out of print publications are held by libraries, they can be found by using the Libraries Australia catalogues default of the Publications search. This will search the catalogue of Australian Government publications held by Australian libraries.

The National Library of Australia provides a Copies Direct Service to provide copies of books, articles, chapters of books, photographs, pictures, maps, etc. You may also be able to acquire out of print publications through second hand book dealers.

Electronic publications that are no longer held on the publishing agency’s website may be available through PANDORA, Australia's web archive of online publications.

Commonwealth copyright

The Attorney-General’s Department no longer provides licences to use Australian Government copyright material produced by Australian Government agencies. Each agency is now responsible for managing copyright for material it produces.

Licensing and use of Commonwealth material provides more information.