What We Collect

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Music

See also: Find Music | Using the Collection

The Library holds the largest research collection of music in Australia. Its strengths are in retrospective and contemporary Australiana, including printed music, published and unpublished scores, and archival sound recordings of folk song and dance traditions in Australia. The collection consists of music and music-related materials that form part of the documentary record of Australian culture, including:

• music (published and unpublished scores, and archival sound recordings)
• resources about music and musical life (books, journals, electronic resources, programmes, images, oral histories, pictorial collections and papers of individual musicians and music organisations)

The term ‘Australian music’ is defined as music created by Australians, published in Australia or associated with Australia by explicit Australian performance or subject reference.

• Printed Music
• Archival Sound Recordings and Oral Histories
• Indigenous Music
• Digital Music
• Overseas Music
• Resources about Music and Musical Life

Printed Music

All types and styles of Australian printed music are collected: for example,

• popular
• classical
• folk
• church
• dance
• educational
• film
• children's
• multicultrual
• indigenous
• jazz
• band
• instrumental
• vocal and choral
• theoretical and didactic
• electronic.

Unpublished Australian music is collected either as part of the archives of Australian musicians, held in the Manuscript section, or as special collections of Australian musical works.

Archival Sound Recordings and Oral Histories

Sound recordings are collected to document the intangible musical heritage of Australia across a range of musical traditions, including folklore and vernacular music. The Library collects archival sound recordings but does not actively collect commercially distributed sound or audiovisual recordings, except where these form part of a musician’s personal archive. Screensound Australia collects commercially recorded and released moving images and sound recordings. Oral histories are recorded where they focus upon Australian composers and performers, music scholars, and notable entrepreneurs or directors.

Indigenous Music

The National Library's ingenous resources are revealed through the Mura Gadi service.

Digital Music

The Library’s development of its digital music collection aims to make available online digital copies of Australian heritage music held in the Library’s own music and related collections. Music web sites are also collected by the Library, where these meet the PANDORA selection criteria.

Overseas Music

The aim of collecting overseas music is to:

• develop and maintain a core collection of music and music information for study and research;
• acquire specialist research material; and
• illustrate the artistic relationships and cultural contexts that inform the development of music and musical life in Australia.

The current strengths of the overseas music collection are in British and European music, ranging across musical styles forming the musical and cultural backdrop to the European settlement of Australia.

Resources about Music and Musical Life

The Library acquires a selection of resources about music, encompassing books, serials and electronic publications, placing an emphasis on the history of music, its social and cultural contexts and reference resources. These include:

• books about music of general public interest, predominantly in English, capable of supporting sustained independent study;
• comprehensive music reference and bibliographic resources and indexes; and
• music serials, retrospective and contemporary, including those accessed through electronic aggregated services.