Research Guides: Companies in Australia: Company directories

Why use a directory?

Directories can provide basic factual information to answer who, what, when, where questions such as whether a company is or was public, private or a subsidiary of a larger organisation, what their focus is or was, names of key executives, addresses and phone numbers. Different types of directories may provide the same or similar information in some cases, but different information in others depending on their focus.

Company directories

Business who's who of Australia (1965/1966 - 2008)
Directory of all publicly listed and the larger private companies. Provides information pertaining to company addresses, names and positions of key personnel, associated companies, agencies, trade names and product range.
The Business who’s who products and tradenames guide
This purchasing and supply directory, provides a quick way of identifying suppliers of products and services, or linking tradenames to suppliers and products. SLV holdings until 2008.
Jobson's Year Book
Annual publication covering companies listed on the Australian stock exchange. Volumes contain a summary for each company including a brief history, all directors, auditors, capital structure and dividends paid. Also includes a few details on senior management, financial information and production data. While there were changes in title and publisher over the decades, the publications had a strong continuity in terms of content. After 1957 there were two volumes, one for resource companies and one for industrial & financial companies. The print publication ceased in 2000 and with Jobson's mining year book: Public companies of Australia and New Zealand merged to form Jobson’s online.
Jobson's mining year book: Public companies of Australia and New Zealand
Kompass Australia
Directory of selected Australian public listed and private companies with a focus on vendors of manufactured products. Information includes company name, contact details, product or service range, names of key personnel and brand names. Includes a highly detailed product classified index. Importers, exporters, distributors, and overseas company agents can be identified. Kompass ceased print publication in 2009, but is still available online to business subscribers.
Whom owns whom: Australasia
This publication provides the corporate family trees of parent companies registered in Australasia, Asia, Middle East and Africa, as well as an alphabetical index of all subsidiaries located in these areas linked to the ultimate parent. The entire set of Who Owns Whom shows linkage details on more than 7.5 million companies world-wide, of which approximately 65,000 of these are Australian. There have been a number of title changes, reflecting changes and relationships in the region. Check catalogue records for specific time periods. The latest title is Who owns whom. Australasia, Africa & Rest of Asia.

Industry directories

Consider searching the library catalogue using the keyword ‘directory’ and the name of an industry, for example, retail. Other terms which may be useful include ‘yearbook’ and ‘handbook’.

Telephone, post office and street directories

For the most up-to-date phone, address or website information for a company, go to Yellow Pages or White Pages online.

State Library Victoria holds an extensive collection of historic Yellow and White Pages (and their previous incarnations) from across regional and metropolitan Australia. Adding a place name or state can refine your search. Depending on the title, these may be physical or microfilm copies, usually retrieved from storage, but check ‘Location’ information in the catalogue record for instructions. A family tree may be available from the ‘Finding aid’ field to trace the history of a title (see this example). Alternatively, look for a ‘Related titles’ field.

Sands & McDougall directories (or Sands & Macs as they were affectionately known) were originally intended to provide a list of the ‘head’ of every household in Melbourne, along with the city’s trades, businesses and organisations (from 1902, regional areas were included). The library holds the complete run, which began in 1857 and ended in 1974. One in every five years from 1860 to 1974 has been digitised. Other states such as South Australia and New South Wales had their own editions.

If you know the approximate location of a company, try looking for them on a street directory. The library has a range of holdings and has also digitised a selection covering Melbourne and the suburbs from 1912 to 1952.

For more information about Post office and telephone directories, see our Researching your Victorian ancestors guide.

[Sands & McDougall] Factory Spencer Street, 1896. H84.460