Topic

One of the world’s oldest music traditions that is still performed is the bunggul ceremony. This can be seen annually at the Garma Festival held in Gulkula, a sacred site in north-east Arnhem Land. The Garma Festival runs for four days and observes the traditions and customs of the Yolngu people.

The Library has a diverse collection of materials documenting the history of Australian musical performance.

Learn about the Prepublication Data Service application process for publications of notated music.

The Library has the largest collection of sheet music in the country, with over 300,000 items. The bulk of the collection relates to Australian composers, performers and music publishing houses.

Julie Murphy, illustrated by Garry Fleming

We had dinner at Bookplate with renowned photojournalist, and guest curator of our Fit to Print exhibition, Mike Bowers.

Ahead of NAIDOC Week 2026 we celebrated Torres Strait Islander tradition and culture.

Author and poet Nam Le discussed his book '36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem' with local Canberra author and Artistic Director of the Canberra Writers Festival, Beejay Silcox.

About 5,000 books, pamphlets and periodicals, over 11,000 paintings, drawings and prints, around 800 maps and over 300 manuscripts mostly published 1770–1900. Largely relating to Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific including Antarctica.

Topic

The word narrative means story. As we write or tell stories, we are creating a narrative by describing a series of events that are connected.