Special Collections



Southbank Library Special Collections

The Southbank Library has an extensive range of Special Collections to support your research. They are one part of the larger group of the University of Melbourne  Cultural Collections, which Include the Rare Books collection, the Print collection and the Rare Music collection. tems in these collections are housed in special conditions by reason of their age, value or uniqueness in order to ensure their care and preservation for current and future generations of scholars and researchers and as a record of our cultural history.

To access the collections: check the catalogue, note call number and request at the service desk at the Southbank Library in The Hub Building (Building 863) or request via email. Please check the Southbank library hours to avoid disappointment.

Victorian College of the Arts and Melbourne Conservatorium of Music Theses Collection:

Special Studies, Graduate Diploma, Masters and PhD research theses. (Note recent theses are available online in the Institutional Repository. Some may also only be available to read in the Special Collections Reading Room, Baillieu Library. Please note catalogue location when searching.

Dewey Special Collections:

Consists of books, artist books, exhibition catalogues relating to music, visual and performing arts.

Victorian College of the Arts Special Collection:

Consists of handbooks, prospectus, programs and ephemera relating to the Victorian College of the Arts.

National Gallery School Library Book Collection:

Consists of the surviving books from the NGS Library which were transferred to the Victorian College of the Arts Library when it was founded in 1975.

National Gallery Art School archive

General Collections

Music special Collections

Rare Music is one of the University’s Special Collections. The collection includes manuscripts, printed music and books about music, archival collections and other music-related materials that are rare and, in some cases, unique. The collection is stored in a secure, climate-controlled environment. While items cannot be borrowed by individuals or viewed in the Southbank Library, requests for access to material are warmly welcomed.

Rare Music is located in the University’s Special Collections At the Baillieu Library.

  • Most items can be found in the University Library catalogue. Select Baillieu Special Collections from drop down box.
  • View Rare Music items in the Reading Room, 3rd floor Baillieu Library, Parkville Campus
  • Use the request management system AEON to place your request
  • Allow several days for your request to be delivered
  • AEON also allows you to place a request for digital images of Rare Music items

Find out more about this exciting collection of more than 12,000 items, or contact the Curator for more information.

Rare Music Collection location  information

How fortunate we are to own such a body of sheet-music. The task of placing all in a catalogue is in progress but the material will not reach the shelves unless and until money is found for its hard-cover protection. By that time, this fine library will have fulfilled its role in seeing to the maintenance of the organists' art but will always look forward to receiving more bequests in expanding that role.

Uncatalogued Organ Music Collection

Australian Composers Recordings Online

Melba Conservatorium of Music research papers:

These were transferred to this library in 2009 when the Melba Conservatorium was closed down.

Margaret Lasica was a pioneering contemporary dance choreographer and educator in Melbourne. The collection was donated by the Lasica Family. These collections provide a cohesive reflection of the influences behind the artistic creativity of Margaret Lasica’s career in dance.

The collection consists of approximately 1,200 books and journals relating mainly to dance, but including drama, costume, theatre production, psychology, art, literature and cultural studies, as supporting material.

Margaret Lasica Collection

The Margaret Lasica Collection Library Guide

Ernest John Moeran was an English composer (1894-1950). His compositions reflect his English and Irish heritage and are based strongly on folk tunes from the counties in which he lived and dwelt.

The collection of music by E J Moeran at the Southbank Library was bequeathed to the Victorian College of the Arts by Peers Coetmore (1905-1976), cellist and wife of E J Moeran. Peers Coetmore was a cello lecturer at the VCA in the 1970s.  The collection contains 107 items in all. Forty-one of these are original manuscripts and the other 65 are early-published editions.

Access: The collection has been digitised and is freely available.

To view the physical items, see the library catalogue listing. Each title is also catalogued individually. The collection is available for consultation in the Southbank Library on consultation with the Fine Arts and Music Librarian. It is not for loan.

In 2008, the Ian Potter Foundation made a generous grant to the Louise Hanson-Dyer Music Collection for the acquisition, cataloguing and preservation of the Barry Tuckwell Collection. Barry Tuckwell is widely recognised as the foremost French horn player of his generation.

Contained in the Collection are: printed (some pre-publication proofs) and manuscript scores, including works written for, dedicated to and edited or annotated by Tuckwell; sound recordings in various formats, commercial and non-commercial; correspondence with composers, conductors, other performers, instrument makers, administrators and others; diaries; documents related to the London Symphony Orchestra, in particular for the period when Tuckwell was its Chairman; concert programmes; posters (not in boxes, some framed); press clippings; photographs; inventories and trade catalogues.The concert programs in the collection span Tuckwell’s career from the mid 1940s until his retirement as a performer. A large proportion feature performing groups with which Tuckwell was associated, such as the London Symphony Orchestra, the Tuckwell Wind Quintet and the Jones, Tuckwell and Langbein Trio. Tuckwell’s international solo career is also fully documented. A program listing is currently underway.

The Barry Tuckwell Collection is a significant and comprehensive resource for anyone researching any aspect of Tuckwell’s professional career and for those interested more generally in twentieth-century horn repertoire or performance practice.

Please see the The Barry Tuckwell Collection subject research guide for further information on the scores, recordings, correspondence and other materials of the Barry Tuckwell Collection.

Catalogue record: Barry Tuckwell Collection

Library Guide:  The Barry Tuckwell Collection is an aid to the scores, recordings, correspondence and other materials of the Barry Tuckwell Collection.

By the time of his appointment as first Ormond Professor of Music at the University of Melbourne in 1891 the English composer G.W.L. Marshall-Hall (1862–1915) had composed three operas, orchestral works and numerous songs. In 1901 a well-known English critic ranked him as a greater composer than Delius, Elgar, Granville Bantock and Hamish MacCunn, calling him “by far the most impressive personality.” By then Australian musicians had discovered that he was also one of the finest conductors of his time. In Melbourne he conducted the Marshall-Hall Orchestra for the twenty years of its existence, from 1892 to 1912, established two conservatoriums and composed another two operas, numerous picturesque orchestral works including two symphonies, as well as string quartets and other chamber works, and incidental music to local dramatic productions.

G. W. L. Marshall-Hall - Catalogue of Works

ART150 was a celebration throughout 2017 of the distinguished history of the Victorian College of the Art’s School of Art, its genesis in the National Gallery Art School in the 19th century, its rich 20th-century history and its 21st-century present and future.

ART150

Research Collections


Select Digitised Collections

⤐ Original special Collection page