NSW Local Studies Librarians meeting
NSW Local Studies Librarians’ Meeting
The next meeting will be 19 November at Gosford Library. More details will be available later in the year.
Campbelltown Library, HJ Daley and online
Campbelltown Library, HJ Daley is at
147-157 Queen St, Campbelltown
24 March 2026 9.45am to 4.00pm
Register for online participation here
Register for participation at Campbelltown Library, HJ Daley here
Agenda
9.45 – 10 am Welcome and Acknowledgement of Country
10 -10.40 am Bess Gilmore-Lim, Library Officer, Local Studies, Campbelltown City Library, Archaeology of the Dharawal
10.45 – 11.05 am Adam Mitchell, Local Studies & Digitisation Officer, Moree, Bringing Stories out of the Archive: the creation of a Local Studies Journal (online)
11.05 - 11.30 am Morning tea
11.30 am – 12.10 pm Dr. Stephen Gaps, Local Studies, and the Australian Frontier Wars
Historian, Henry Reynolds once noted the 'big picture' of Australia's Frontier Wars had been covered by historians and now we need local, focused accounts. In this talk Stephen Gapps will cover his work in undertaking some of these more focused histories including The Sydney Wars, the Bathurst War and his recent work Uprising which looks at the expanding frontier across NSW in the 1830s/40s. He will discuss the importance of local studies collections in his work, the significance of local First Nations stories, and the strengths and weaknesses of local studies collections in terms of The Australian Frontier Wars.
12.15 – 12.40 pm 10 Sides in 5 minutes
1.Helen McDonald, Sutherland, Notice of Transfer Collection: A House History Resource (online)
2. Andrew Allen, Campbelltown, Fisher’s Ghost
3. Samantha Starr, Parkes, Celebrating the Dish; Bringing together local history and film buffs (online)
4. Juliet Beale, Wollongong, Collecting strategy to document and reflect LGBTQIA+ stories in Wollongong
5. Katherine Day, Northern Beaches, Collection development: partnering with council teams to create contemporary, diverse, and interactive collections
12.45 – 1.05 pm General Business
1. Georgina Keep, CDP Generic Template for LS Collections
2. Impact of Infrastructure changes in metro and regional area, impacting on population, housing etc and LS collecting strategies
3. Wider LS meeting
4. Other Business
5. Next LS meeting
1.10 – 2pm Lunch
2 – 2.40 pm Lynette Plenderleith, Australian Citizen Science Association, Science for everyone: citizen science in New South Wales (online)
2.45 – 3.25 pm Andrew Redfern, Using AI for Family & Local History
Discover how artificial intelligence can assist family and local historians to research more efficiently, analyse complex records, and uncover new connections. This session explores practical, ethical, and creative ways to use AI to transcribe, organise, interpret, and share historical information while keeping the historian firmly in control. Please Note this talk will not be recorded and will not be available for viewing later.
3.30 – 4 pm Campbelltown City Library Tour with Andew Allen