Hands-on tour of the Archives

Reading Room closed - Saturday 17 September 2022

Please note that our Reading Room at the Western Sydney Records Centre (WSRC) will be closed to the public on Saturday 17 September.

This is so that our team can carry out some technical upgrades. We apologise for any inconvenience and thank you for your patience.

Please check our website for updates.

Save the date: Sydney Open

For one weekend in November, unlock the doors of historically significant, architecturally inspiring, contemporary and secret spaces usually off-limits to the general public across the CBD and Greater Sydney.  

Tickets for Sydney Open released in late September!  

Find out more.

Image: © James Horan for Sydney Living Museums.

Flickr album - dogs!

2019-20 NSW bushfires gallery

Over 240 consecutive days from July 2019 to 2 March 2020, a series of catastrophic bushfires raged throughout eastern New South Wales (NSW). Approximately 5,520,000 hectares of land – urban, farm and bush – were burnt, representing approximately 7 per cent of the total area of NSW. The fires destroyed 2,476 homes, and there was immense loss of wildlife and wildlife habitat.

Tragically, 26 lives were lost, including six firefighters.

Nationally, in a fire season that affected all of Australia, a total of 34 people died, including nine firefighters.

Our new online gallery is a record of those traumatic eight months. The images are drawn from public submissions made to the NSW Bushfire Inquiry, and from its published report.

Image: © (Anonymous) Submission 0027.

Unrealised Sydney

Explore a selection of ambitious, shapeshifting and radical visions for some of Sydney’s key precincts created by leading architects and developers from the post-World War II era to the 2000s. Though never realised, these schemes – shown through a range of plans, designs, models, sketches and documentary footage – form a rich part of Sydney’s story.

The exhibition focuses on the story of eight precincts, including The Rocks, Woolloomooloo and Macquarie Street. Characterised by complex urban, political and community forces, the unbuilt proposals for these sites will allow visitors to imagine what Sydney might have been.

Upcoming Q&A webinar

We've been undertaking a large digitisation project of at-risk material in the State Archives Collection, and now we're talking to you about it in a live Q&A session!

Find out about the glass plate negatives depicting life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, our digitised insolvency files, and our school files.

Submit your questions between Monday 30 August and Monday 12 September, and make sure you register for the event. 

What's now digitised on the website? live Q&A
Friday 16 September 2022
10:30pm-11:30am

Register for more of our webinars!