National Library Oral History and Folklore Collection

This collection contains a significant quantity of folklore and social history field tapes, dating from the post-war Australian folklife revival. These include:
  1. The John Meredith Collection
  2. The Norm O'Connor Collection
  3. The Alan Scott Collection
  4. The Wattle Collection
  5. The Rob Willis Collection
The Anne O'Connor Collection highlights the contribution of the Irish to the Australian cultural experience. These are part of the national collection which contains some 58,000 oral history and folk recordings.

The Library has also begun to collect material that reflects the full range of multi-cultural experience in music and other forms of cultural expression. Most notable among this endeavour are the Monaro Multicultural Music and Dance Project and the Peter Parkhill Collection, focusing on traditional and popular music of Greek, Turkish, Lebanese and Italian Australians.

USING THE COLLECTION

Much of the collection has been cleared by the interviewee/informant for immediate access. For some material permission must first be obtained, and sometimes access may be restricted for a set period of time. Because audio tape is a fragile medium, requiring special preservation treatment, there is often a time lag between the acquisition of recordings and their eventual availability for research use.

Many of the recordings which are publicly available are catalogued and listed in the Library's online oral histories and folklore catalogue.

TIP: When using the second search engine
use the back button on the page and NOT the back button on your browser

I've Found Something I want to Hear . . . . now what?

Once the material has been cleared for access, there are 2 ways for you to hear it.
  1. through the Oral History Reading Room at the Library itself
  2. on Inter-Library Loan (via the Library's Document Supply Services)
Copies of some tapes and transcripts can also be purchased.

All enquiries should be directed to:
Reference Librarian, Oral History
National Library of Australia
Canberra ACT 2600

Telephone: (02) 6262 1687
Facsimile: (02) 62571703

Can't Get to Canberra? Try Your Local Library.

If you can't get to the National Library to use the collection you can arrange an inter-library loan through your own local library. Your library will organise for a copy of the tape to be sent to them on your behalf and you can listen to it there.

Here's what to do:

  1. Search the catalogue using the search engine above.
  2. Type in what you wish to see. eg. If you want to hear the taped interview collector Rob Willis did with Athol McCoy, choose "interviewee/er" and type in Rob Willis or Athol McCoy. (typing both Rob Willis and Athol McCoy will narrow the results considerably)
  3. Press Search.
  4. From the summary of the results select the one you wish and click on it.
  5. Copy down the information:
    • author
    • title
    • TRC call number
    • series etc
  6. Take the information with you to your local library and they will contact the National Library and organise to get the tape for you to hear.
This webpage © 2002 Simply Australia