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Cole's Music of the Bells (2nd series). Melbourne : E. W. Cole, c.1898.
Edward William Cole (1832-1918) was 'the most amazing bookseller in the history of Australian publishing'. Arriving in 1852 as a goldrush immigrant he worked along the Murray River, eventually opening a bookshop in the Eastern Market, Melbourne, in 1865. In 1873 he opened the first Cole's Book Arcade and eventually moved in 1883 to its Bourke Street home.

A large range of music was published by E.W. Cole and the bright covers were an attractive feature and unusual for this period.

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The Rams Skull Press was established by Ron Edwards in Ferntree Gully in the early 1950s and amongst its first publications were the pioneering series of broadsheets, 'Bandicoot Ballads', a collaboration between Edwards and John Manifold. Manifold played a pioneering role in ensuring that Australian bush songs were collected and published.

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Isaac Nathan (1790?-1864)
The Southern Euphrosyne and Australian Miscellany: containing oriental moral tales, original anecdote, poetry and music, an historical sketch with examples of native aboriginal melodies put into modern rhythm and harmonized as solos, quartettes, &c. together with several other original vocal pieces, arranged to a piano-forte accompaniment by the editor and sole proprietor, I Nathan. (Sydney, Nathan, 1849)

The Southern Euphrosnyne includes both musical components and embittered details of Nathan's personal affairs, affidavits from supporters and stories of his Jewish heritage. The most significant aspect of this book is the publication of his aboriginal transcriptions with annotations. In adding harmonies and rhythmic strictures and the 'versifying' of the words, the original music has been obscured, so that the result is a set of songs representative of the typical nineteenth century song genre, perhaps reflecting the colonial attitudes to the original inhabitants of Australia through this transmogrification.

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Musica Australiana Press
This shortlived press was founded in Ballarat in 1979 by pianist and musicologist, Kathleen Brady and printer, Geoffrey Zilles. Quartet for two violins viola and violoncello by Edward Horsley was the first production of this press which aimed to produce facsimiles of compositions with an Australian connection. Charles Edward Horsely, born in London in 1822, arrived in Australia in 1861 with a reputation as an organist and composer of some note. He was conductor of the Melbourne Philharmonic Society from 1862- 1865, organist at St Francis Church and contributed to the musical components of the 1866 Melbourne Exhibition.

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W.J. Banks The Australian Musical Album 1894 (Sydney, 1894)

This was to be number one of a series, but unfortunately no others were published. It was designed as a publication for giving and sending back to the 'home' country - to promote the colonies with examples of up to date musical styles and artistic representations of the sophisticated buildings and gardens. It contains works by many of the musicians practicing in Sydney at the time, including August Wiegand, Henri Kowalski, Albert Wentzel, Horace Poussard, Hugo Alpen, Alice Charbonnet-Kellermann, Esther Kahn and Reene Less.

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J. Walch and Sons
The firm, taken over by Major Walch and his sons from Samuel Augustus Tegg at the beginning of 1846, was to play an important role in the selling and publishing of music in the later nineteenth century. The advertisements in these almanacs illustrate the extensive range of activities of Walch and Sons, including the sale of 'music paper, music books etc' and pianos and organs. The development of the music side of the business between the 1840s and the 1880s is quite clear from the material displayed.

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Australian Jazz Quarterly, (no.1, 1946 - no. 24, 1954) was purchased by the Music Library in 1995. Described as 'a magazine for the Connoisseur of Hot Music" it was 'devoted purely to jazz essays, criticism, biographies and similar features ... and catered particularly for Australian fans'. It ran until 1965. AJQ was edited and published by William H Miller, a Melbourne lawyer. Miller went to Oxford in 1933 and frequented the rhythm clubs and record shops in London until his return to Australia in 1938. With a library of about six hundred jazz records, he began broadcasting on 3UZ in a weekly spot called 'Jazz Night' and became influential in his support of traditional jazz which was making a revival in Australia after the Second World War. Contributors included active performers Graeme and Roger Bell.

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