Company Research

The State Libraray of Victoria has a page called "Companies in Australia".
There are a variety of suggestions here. The best ones include:
Morningstar DatAnalysis
Aspect Financial Pty Ltd
Date range: 1989 to current
What: online database
Where: Available from all workstations at SLV Swanston Street
Output: Read on screen, print from workstation, download text, csv, and pdf files
Extensive information on ASX listed and delisted companies. Content incudes each company's annual reports, quarterly and half-yearly reports, all company announcements, financial statements, director statements, business summary, company, operational and dividend history, listing details, descriptions of capital table, capital history, top and substantial shareholders, distribution of shareholders, directors interests, controlled entities, segment performance, and 10-year financial statements. Excellent source of prospectuses in pdf format. Now includes history for share prices, market capitalisation and shares on issue. Daily data is available from 1 January 2000. Month end data is available from January 1988.

ASX Company Announcements Collection, 1980-1996

bibliography - Check List of Australian Business Histories and Biographies of Businessmen published in Business Archives and History in Volume III, No 1, February 1963, pp 119-137

A key resource seems to be the "Guide to Australian Business Records"
Date range: 19th and 20th centuries
What: Website listing records of archival holdings and published histories of Australian businesses, people and industry bodies. Includes links to other sources of business archives.
This had its antecedants in"
The bibliography - Check List of Australian Business Histories and Biographies of Businessmen published in Business Archives and History in Volume III, No 1, February 1963, pp 119-137.
Julie Marshall and Richard Trahair, A checklist of biographies of Australian businessmen, published by La Trobe University Library, 1980.
The National Archives of Australia, the University of Melbourne Archives and the Noel Butlin Archives Centre, have all supported.
D. Terwiel, S. P. Ville and G. A. Fleming,Australian Business Records: An Archival Guide Canberra : Australian National University, Faculty of Economics and Commerce, Dept. of Economic History, 1998.

University of Melbourne Archives collections
Finding Aids
You can also browse the catalogue bu person or business.
The librarty has a good section on engineering.

 Noel Butlin Archives
Map Catalogue

The Economic History Soceity of Australia and New Zealand
Publishes the Australian Economic History Review.

There is an Australian Mining History Association

 National Library
Guide to selected Collections:
 Petherick Collection

About 15,000 books and pamphlets. The great strength of the collection is in Pacific voyages and early Australiana with many very rare items. Also manuscripts including papers of Joseph Banks, maps and pictures.

Tooley Collection

1277 charts and maps dating from the 16th to the late 19th centuries. They include maps of the Pacific and New Zealand as well as Australia.

 

The NLA publishes an Australian Government Publications Guides.

The "Browse by State" button is quite useful.

 

The NLA has an "Index to the Historical Records of Australia: 1788-1848".

There is a page on Government Gazettes
The State Library of Victoria has online images of every page of the New South Wales Government Gazette 1836 - 1851 (provided from the collection of the State Library of New South Wales).

The Pacific Manuscripts Bureau is an intersting resource.
There are some interesting references in its Printed Publications records.
There is also a Pacific Research Collections (PRC), with some finding aids.

For "Recent Government Publications" see the huge lists published by Libraries Australia.

Web Exhibits

I am a fan of The Exchange, by the Business History Conference.
A recent post on Web Exhibits included:

• The ongoing list hosted by the Smithsonian- searchable by name and keyword.
• The Califorinan State Library had a great exhihibition on the Gold Rush. So did the Bancroft Library.
• The British Library had an exhibition on the East India Company, 1600-1834.
• The Harvard Business School ahd an exhibitionon the South Sea Bubble.
• The Early American Economy.
• The Colonial Sugar Refining Company Limited (CSR) in Fiji, 1881 and 1974, is featured by the ANU Pacific Research Collection.
• Tobacco History is featured by the NSCU Libraries.
• The Tobacco Industry is featured by the Durham County Library.
• Records of early American Commerce is featured here (John Carter Brown Library).
• The Dutch mapping of Australia is featured by the National Library of Australia.
• "Sea-Going Capitalism" is part of a Maritime Museum of BC exhibition.

National Archives: Customs Records 1841-1922

I'm doing a project on movement between Sydney and San Francisco during the Californian Gold Rush.
Earlier I did a post on One, but many that won the 2013 GovHack competition using the National Archives’ Passenger Arrivals Index (PAI). The Passengers Arrival list is for Perth post 1920.
There is a list of NAA Fact Sheets here.
The best one (for me) was: 
Customs shipping records held in Sydney – Fact sheet 65.
Especially Registers of ships, arrivals and departures, Sydney (arranged chronologically), 1841–1922, (Series Number SP729/1).
Description of series:

17 bound registers, generally, 19" x 15", titled "Arrivals & Departures", being a chronological register of ships arrivals and departures to and from Port Jackson, Sydney, for the period named. On each open page Arrivals are entered on left hand side and Departures on right hand side. The first volume is a variation as Departures start at one end of register and Arrivals at the other.  Entries in the first register are under Date, Name of ship, Captns. Name, Wherefrom, Remarks (eg. cargo, convicts, emigrants, troops, whaling, etc.), and Burthen (tonnage).  Printed register details (1917-22) are as follows: Date, Name of Vessel, Description of Vessel (eg. Steam, Motor, Sail), Master's Name, Tonnage, No. of Crew, No. of Passengers (Male, Female, and Children), Total No. of Passengers, and in case of "Arrivals" column: "Whence from" and "Departures" "Where bound".

History Prior/Subsequent to Transfer:

Prior to transfer: These registers appear to the forerunner of the Clearing Clerk's Ship's Register, Series 5 and 6. The difference from about 1850 onwards is that the general registers of arrivals and departures are chronological and are chronological to the present, whereas, the Jerquer copy has always been an alphabetical type of index register, chronological under each letter of the alphabet.

A more thorough history of these records is being compiled with the aid of the State Archives Office of NSW and will be issued as a supplement to this accession.

Subsequent to transfer: This series was originally transferred to archival custody in August 1952 as SP70, Series 1 and 2, and has been used quite often for reference. With the microfilming of the Passenger Lists in 1964 it was decided to consolidate all Ships' Registers, Inward and Outward, to make for easier reference by officers in Archives, other Commonwealth Departments, and the general public.

NOTE: On 2 February 1967 Mr. Russel Doust, Archivist, Archives Office of NSW intimated that he had located some 1850's vintage Registers at the Maritime Services Board, Sydney, and would follow-up and advise us further. They were Arrivals and Departures Registers and may well fill in the gaps in this accession.

The Sydney Office is located at
National Archives of Australia,
120 Miller Road,
CHESTER HILL NSW 2162

9am–4.30pm Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays

(02) 9645 0110