How to find and use items in the Manuscripts collection.

Our Manuscripts collections are wide ranging and provide rich evidence of the lives and activities of Australians who have shaped our society.

Topic

Sir Edmund Barton (1849–1920) was Australia’s first prime minister, playing a key role in shaping the Constitution.

Over 10,000 black and white negatives and colour transparencies, about 1000 exhibition prints, several photograph albums, a group of stereographs, plus maps, diaries and personal papers.

Photographs, programs, cast lists, souvenir booklets, invitations and ephemera relating to Australian ballet, plus personal papers of Geoffrey Ingram and Edouard and Xenia Borovansky.

Over 13,000 negatives, transparencies, and photographs of cattle stations taken between 1951 and 1961, as well as 52 British Hydrographic Office charts and maps of Australia and the Pacific and personal papers of Johnston.

950 books on bibliography, history, law, religion, ethnography, archaeology and fine arts of Indonesia, 629 books relating to the languages of Austronesia and some manuscripts, including transcripts of a collection of Sudanese manuscripts.

Over 6000 books, pamphlets and journals mainly related to Australian history and politics, as well as personal papers and a significant number of British and American imprints.

Personal papers from 1938-1974 plus pamphlets, leaflets and other publications relating to socialist, communist, anti-communist and peace organisations in both Australia and overseas.

Books, pamphlets, broadsides, posters, periodicals, newspapers and some manuscripts mostly relating to Federation and political and constitutional history.

Books illustrating the history of printing in Europe and Australia, plus a medieval manuscript, and personal papers of Brian Hone.

Collection of Australian drama consisting of 197 unpublished plays in typescript or manuscript form by Australian authors.