Countdown to Mitchell centenary - State Library of New South Wales

n e w s
First Fleet
journals
recognised
by UNESCO
Our unrivalled collection
of First Fleet journals was
recently added to the
UNESCO Australia Memory
of the World Register. The
Library holds nine of the
11 First Fleet journals known
to exist, providing first-hand
accounts of the voyage to
Australia and early settlement
from 1787 to the 1790s.
The Memory of the World
program aims to safeguard
and raise awareness of the
documentary heritage of
humanity. The First Fleet
journals are available to read
on our website.
image: boTany bay (deTail), 1788,
Charles gore, WaTerColour, dg V1a/8
Future of
libraries
How will the global financial
crisis, climate change and an
ageing population change and
shape NSW public libraries in
the future What will be the
effect of technologies such as
e-books and web 2.0 Research
by the State Library and NSW
public libraries has looked at
future scenarios that could
affect public libraries over the
next 20 years, and ways we can
respond to change. A report,
The Bookends Scenarios:
Alternative Futures for the
Public Library Network in
NSW in 2030, was recently
prepared by Neville Freeman
Agency and will be
available on our website.
New research
partnership:
History of
climate change
A research team from the University of Melbourne
has partnered with the State Library of NSW and
other key libraries to develop a climate history for
south-eastern Australia. Surprisingly, climate
records such as temperature and rainfall
measurements have only been kept officially in
Australia for about 100 years. If it hadn’t been for
early European explorers and settlers, we would have
few accounts of weather patterns pre-dating the
1900s. The landmark project, led by Dr Joelle Gergis
and Professor David Karoly, will comb the Library’s
archives to capture Australia’s climatic past and
help determine the extent of human-caused
climate change.
image: fenCing aT breWarrina (deTail), 2002, darren Clark, pxa 1069
s l m a g a z i n e Summer 2009/10 / State Library of New South Wales / 7