The collection consists mainly of material supporting the research work of the Institute and the supervisory work of the Office of the Supervising Scientist. Print and non print materials on wetlands ecology, aquatic biology, analytical chemistry, environmental radioactivity, health physics, uranium mining, radioactive waste disposal and statistics form the majority of the collection. The library also holds material to support other aspects of the Institute's work, such as computing, management and occupational health and safety. The library also maintains an in-house database of material published on the Alligator Rivers Region, known as ARRI database, This database presently contains 1,850 entries. A recently purchased CD ROM server will provide access to reference material held CD ROM from each computer workstation in the Institute.
Staff have access to material held in other libraries through inter-library loans.
The Library also makes information from international databases available through database hosts Dialog and Orbit. The Australian Antarctic Division Library was established in 1950, and as the nation's polar library, specialises in antarctic and sub-antarctic material and, where relevant, information about the arctic. The library supports Australia's antarctic objectives over its full range of activities including policy, research, operations, management and public relations. Minor collections are located in the Polar Medicine Branch at Kingston, the Human Resource Development Section at Kingston, the Electron Microscope Unit at Kingston, and the Glaciology Section at the Antarctic Co-operative Research Centre, University of Tasmania. Some of the glaciology material suitable for undergraduates has been relocated into the SciTech Library at the university.