This information is for general guidance only; it is not legal advice.

First read:

• copyright basics webpage

Because of a special exception in the Copyright Act (section 52), you can publish certain old unpublished material held in libraries as part of a “new work”, provided:

• the item is a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work (there is no equivalent exception for sound recordings or film footage);
• the item has never have been published;
• the creator died more than 50 years ago;
• the item is held in a library or archive open to public inspection;
  
• you do not know who currently owns copyright; and
• you have placed a notice in the Commonwealth Government Gazette

The exception does not apply to published material. It can apply to an anonymous work, but you need to be sure that its author died more than 50 years ago.

The exception only allows you to publish the old material in a “new work” – it does not entitle you to publish it on its own. In most cases, however, this will not be a difficulty – publishing the old material with annotations or footnotes, for example, may in most cases suffice.

The notice  you place in the Commonwealth Government Gazette must:

• state the name, and the address of the place of residence or business, of the person intending to publish the new work and the intention of that person to publish the new work (that is, the work that includes the old unpublished material);
• state the title (if any) of the old work and, if that title is not sufficient to enable that work to be identified, describe that work in a way that is sufficient for that purpose;
• state the time, or an estimate of the time, when the old work was made or the period, or an estimate of the period, over which the making of the old work extended, as the case may be;
•  if the name of the author of the old work is known to the person intending to publish the new work – state the name of that author;
• state the name and address of the library or other place in which a copy, or the manuscript, of the old work is kept;
• state the name of the person from whom the copy or manuscript of the old work was acquired for the purposes of that library or other place or, if the person intending to publish the new work does not know the name of the person from whom the copy or manuscript was acquired for those purposes, state that fact;
• state that a person claiming to be the owner of the copyright in the old work may give notice of his claim to the person intending to publish the new work; and
• state, at the foot of the notice, the name of the person giving the notice.

This notice must be published in the Commonwealth government gazette not earlier than three months, and not later than two months, before the date of the first or  subsequent publication of the work in which the old unpublished material is to be included.

For information on the relevant government gazette, see http://publications.gov.au/gazettes.html.

More

• Copyright Act section 52
  
• other copyright topics
• Q&As on publishing old unpublished material