Book Search

The Library is always looking for material to add to the collection.

Your assistance helps us to build a national collection for future generations of Australian to use and enjoy. Your Library donation or advice of the whereabouts of any of the items listed below (for puchase at current market prices) is greatly appreciated.

Please direct all enquiries and offers of materials select@nla.gov.au or use the Library's online enquiry form.

Australiana to 1900

The history of publishing in and about Australia is comparatively short - spanning just over 200 years of white settlement and including earlier speculation about the Great South Land and European voyages of discovery. While the National Library has the largest collection of Australian printed material in the world, there are some books which are missing from the collection, and which it would like to acquire and preserve:

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Australiana, 1901-1950

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Australiana, 1951-2000

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Overseas books

Australian printed music

The Library's collection of printed music is particularly strong in Australian music, with an outstanding collection of nineteenth century materials. A largely comprehensive collection of 20th century music published in or relating to Australia continues to be built.

There are some pieces of 19th and early 20th century sheet music that the National Library does not have in its collection, and would like to acquire:

  • Australis, or, The City of zero
    - "an entirely original, musical and spectacular, pantomimic extravaganza of the future" / written and staged for Federation 1900/01, with music by Bernard Espinasse and script by J.C. Williamson

We are currently targeting Australian music, both published and unpublished. For example, in addition to music composed for Federation events we are missing three songs composed in 1932 about the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, a song composed by Don Bradman in 1931 with words by Jack Lumsdaine Every day is a rainbow day for me, a 1930s revue by Jack O'Hagan Tout Paree, an opera Gerada by Dudley Glass, published 19th century Australian music such as the Seventy seventh galop by Cavallini, and contemporary Australian operas.

A regularly updated desiderata list for music is available. Can you help?

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Newspapers

In early 2008, a search and rescue campaign was launched by Australian Newspaper Plan (ANPlan) libraries to recruit the help of the public to find newspapers which are missing from the ANPlan library collections; and raise public awareness of the role of libraries in collecting, preserving and providing access to Australian newspapers.

There have been some great finds but the hunt is still on for Australian's missing newspapers. Can you help?

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Magazines and journals

Does your home have Australian style? Do you read Elle (Australian edition)? Are your bookshelves bending under the weight of Gardening Australia? The National Library collects these and thousands of other magazines that are published in Australia. The publishers provide them to the Library free of charge under the legal deposit provisions of the Copyright Act, 1968. There are times, however, when issues are missed, lost or damaged and this results in gaps in the Library's collection. With shorter print runs and the passage of time, the Library finds it increasingly difficult to obtain replacement copies of missing issues.

Magazines from overseas that the Library is also interested in are:

Menus

The National Library collects printed ephemera and is interested menus in the following categories:

  • Special occasion menus - these may be associated with a particular function. For example, touring sporting teams such as MCC cricket teams, visits by international dignitaries, dinners associated with the opening of prominent exhibitions, buildings and special commemorative functions.
  • Menus from restaurants in other countries having a particularly Australian 'flavour' - these usually have a particularly Australian theme both in the design of the menu as well as the names and nature of the dishes offered on it.
  • Shipping line menus - any menus that may have been produced for a particular voyage to Australia. These may also include cruise ships using Australia as a base
  • Airline menus - particularly non-Australian airlines, which may have produced a menu for an Australian leg of an international flight. These may be particularly useful for wine lists served on these flights.
  • Restaurant menus in general - particularly unusual and interesting menus, including those from large hotels to small boutique type restaurants. The National Library is particularly interested in acquiring a sample of menus from all areas of Australia. Menus from restaurants with an ethnic flavour illustrate the multicultural aspects of Australian society in the late 20th and 21st centuries.

 

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