The papers relate mainly to the work of C.A. Burmester as a senior member of the staff of the National Library of Australia and to his scholarly and bibliographical activities in the years after his retirement in 1971. They include reports, minutes, and other internal documents of the Library, correspondence, speeches and talks, draft bibliographies, and copies of his unpublished memoirs. There are papers relating to the Conference on Source Materials for Australian Studies (1961), the National Book Resources Development Committee, and the Humanities Research Centre of the Australian National University. The papers were received in a highly disorganised state and to a large extent the existing order has been imposed by Library staff. They have been arranged into ten series, six of which relate to phases of his career as a librarian and three of which document his retirement activities. The correspondents include Rex Nan Kivell, John La Nauze, L.F. Fitzhardinge, Dan Sprod and Allan Fleming.