The National Library is seeking public donations to support a major digitisation project that will bring the manuscript collections of 20 Australian women writers online for the first time through Trove.

Library director-general Alison Dellit said the initiative, part of the Library’s 2026 Appeal, aied to make internationally significant archival material freely accessible beyond the Library’s reading rooms in Canberra.

The collections currently remained physically accessible only on-site, despite containing letters, journals, manuscripts and personal records of some of Australia’s most influential literary figures.

Among the writers whose archives were set to be digitised were Judith Wright, Mary Gilmore, Henry Handel Richardson and Christina Stead, alongside lesser-known but historically significant figures including journalist and activist Jennie Scott Griffiths, novelist Rosa Praed and writer and historian Henrietta Drake-Brockman.

Philanthropic support had been central to expanding access to the nation’s cultural record through Trove, which was used by millions of Australians.

“The National Library and its partners have been global leaders in making cultural content available online through Trove,” Dellit said.

“Philanthropic support has helped us to make even more material from our physical collections available online – we now add over 1.5 million pages of new content every year, and these collections are freely available online for everyone, everywhere.”

She said the project also highlighted the dual literary and social impact of writers such as Judith Wright, who was nominated multiple times for the Nobel Prize in Literature and named a National Living Treasure. Her papers reflected both her literary achievements and her advocacy for First Nations peoples and environmental protection.

Support digitisation of the National Library’s women writers collections at library.gov.au/appeal.