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:
- Butcher-baronet, or, The Wagga Wagga mystery : a new and original musical burletta in three acts / by Frank Hutchinson
(Wagga Wagga, NSW : Advertiser Printing Office, 1871) - Boys of the world: a journal for prince and peasant / Edwin Brett
(London : Edwin J. Brett, 1869-1870) - The Brother of the shadow: a mystery of to-day / Rosa Praed
(George Routledge & Sons, 1886) - Catalogue of the exhibits in the Queensland Mining Court, Queensland International Exhibition, 1897 / by R.L. Jack
(Edmund Gregory, Govt. Printer 1897) - Limitation of offspring : being the substance of a lecture delivered in the North Melbourne Town Hall, and elsewhere, to large audiences of women only / Mrs B. Smyth
(Melbourne : Rae Bros., 1893) - The Parent's assistant, or, Stories for children / Maria Edgeworth
(London :printed for J. Johnson, 1796) - 1st edition - "The Right Honourable": a romance of society and
politics / Justin McCarthy, MP and Mrs Campbell-Praed
(London : Chatto & Windus, 1886) - Sketches of human manners : delineated in stories intended to
illustrate the characters, religion, and singular customs, of the inhabitants
of different parts of the world / Priscilla Wakefield
(London : [Darton & Harvey], 1807) - 1st edition - Le tour du monde en coquille de noix / Eudoxie Dupuis
(Paris : Ch. Delagrave, c.1890) - Winning a wife in Australia: a story drawn from actual
experiences and illustrative of life in the present day in the
Antipodes / A. Donnison
(Sydney, NSW : Dymock's Book Arcade, 1894)
Australiana, 1901-1950
- Australian cricket tours to New Zealand
"Only Test" souvenier programme, international cricket Australia v New Zealand, Basin Reserve, Wellington March 29-30 and 1-2 April 1946 and the official programme from the 1949-1950 Australia v Wellington match, also at the Basin Reserve, 1, 3 and 4 April 1950.
- Australskem bushi. Upravil a prelozil / Stepan von Kotze
(Prague : Ceska Graficka Unie, 1921) - Democracy on trial, and other essays / Frederick A.W. Gisborne
(London : Longmans, Green, 1928) - The Flying Jockey: A Story of Racing and War / Ernest Charles Buley
(London: Mills and Boon, 1919) - The Ghost / Rosa Praed
(London : Everett, 1903) - The Honour of the station / Will H. Ogilvie
(London : Holden & Hardingham, 1914) - The Insane root: a romance of a strange country / by Mrs. Campbell Praed
(London : T. Fisher Unwin, 1902)
- The Saga of Hans Hansen / Oscar Asche
(London : Hurst & Blackett, 1930) - Stubble before the wind
(London : J. Long, 1908) - The Wayward fern / Annina E. Highfield
(Brisbane, QLD : The Read Press Ltd, 1930) - Why the sphinx smiles / by Ethel Knight Kelly
(London : John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1925 )
Australiana, 1951-2000
- Back to the best interests of the child : towards a rebuttable presumption of joing custody, a paper
(Adelaide : Child Support Action Group, 1995) - Floral patterns for embroiderers and cake decorators / Nicholas Lodge
(East Roseville, NSW : Simon & Schuster, 1991) - Green pages : directory of non-government environmental groups in Australia

(Hawthorn, VIC : Australian Conservation Foundation, 1978) - John Perceval : Williamstown and other images
(South Yarra,Vic: The Galleries, 1989) - Paul Keating's book of insults / Paul Keating
(Melbourne : Bookman Press, 1992)
Overseas books
- Mansfield Park: a novel / Jane Austen
(London : T. Egerton, 1814). 1st edition - volumes 1 & 3 sought - Variety obituaries
(New York : Garland Publishing, 1988-) 15 volume set from which, volume 14 is sought - Korea and the ten lost tribes of Israel, with Korean, Japanese and Israelitish illustrations ; Album and guide book of Japan, from Satsuporo in the north to Kagoshima in the south, with historical and statistical notes / compiled by N. McLeod
(Yokohama : C. Levy and the Seishi Bunsha Co., 1879)
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?
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?
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.
- Australian Aboriginal studies (ISSN 0067-1541)
Issues sought: No. 30, 1973 (Australian Aboriginal bark paintings and their mythological interpretation / Helen M. Groger-Wurm) - Australian journal of mining: AJM (ISSN 1037-0552)
Issues sought: no. 65 (1992); no. 76 (1993); no. 88 (1994); nos. 100, 106-110 (1995); nos. 112, 114-116 (1996); nos. 122-124 (1996/97); vol. 14, no. 156 (2000) - Australian style (ISSN 1322-9559)
Issues sought: nos. 1-4, 8-16, 18-28, 30-43, 46-47 - The Australian way (ISSN 0818-9161)
Issues sought: Oct. 1992-June 1993, Mar. 1994, July 1996; Jan., June, Oct., Dec. 1997; Jan., July 1998 - Australian Women's Weekly
6 January 1965 (vol. 32, no. 32) > 31 March 1965 (vol. 32 no. 44); 3 April 1968 (vol. 35, no. 44) > 26 June 1968 (vol. 36, no.4) -
Avstralaziia
Issues sought: All issues - only an imperfect copy of no. 2, 1934 is held. - Cricket: a magazine devoted exclusively to cricket
Issues sought: Vol. 1, nos. 2-3 (1924/25), vol. 1, no. 5+ - Elle (Australian edition)
Issues sought: No. 7 (July 1990); no. 51 (May/June 1994); no. 107 (Jan. 1999) - Shares: your guide to Australia's best stocks (ISSN 1327-5798)
Issues sought: Dec. 2000 - The Picture: Australia's incredible new weekly (ISSN 1033-3258)
Issues sought: Many issues missing - please check catalogue - Table & kitchen (ISSN 1321-3679)
Issues sought: Aug./Sept. 1999 - Wise's Western Australia post office directory
Issues sought: 1938/39; 1948; 1950+
Magazines from overseas that the Library is also interested in are:
- Nigeria: quarterly magazine of general interest (Lagos, Nigeria : 1937).
This magazine was continued by Nigeria magazine which the Library holds with some gaps from 1957 to 1989. The Library is particularly interested in filling in the 1951 to 1957 period. - Royal military panorama, or, Officers' companion
[London: W. Wilson, c1812-1813]
Issue sought: volume II - Scientific American (ISSN 0036-8733)
Issues sought: volume 50 (1884: Jan/Jun) volume 53 (1885: Jul/Dec) volume 55 (1886: Jul/Dec) volume 57 (1887: Jul/Dec) volume 59 (1888: Jul/Dec) volume 63 (1890: Jul/Dec) volume 230 (1974: July/Dec) volume 240: no. 6+ (1979: June+) volume 241: no. 1 & 3 (1979) volume 262: no. 6+ (1990) volume 263: no. 6+ (1990) volume 265: no. 2 (1991: August) - Magazine / The Royal Hong Kong Golf Club (Hong Kong : The Club)
Vol. 3, no. 4 (Dec. 1970)
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Menus
The National Library collects printed ephemera and is interested menus in the following categories:
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