Journeys in Time: Introduction

Introduction

In 1956 the Trustees of the Public Library of New South Wales published a transcription of all of Lachlan Macquarie's journals describing his tours of inspection in Australia entitled: Lachlan Macquarie Governor of New South Wales; Journals of his Tours in New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land 1810 -1822. (ed.) Phyllis Mander Jones (Reprinted by Library of Australian History in 1979).

This publication made available for the first time a unique collection of documents and provided historical researchers with the means to read transcripts of the original sources in their entirety. It was an invaluable contribution - the only other means of easy access at this time was through microfilm reproductions of the original sources.

The emergence of the Internet in recent years as a medium for the rapid transfer of information is now providing a new means of making the writings of Lachlan Macquarie more readily available to researchers throughout the world.

In 1997 the State Library of New South Wales made available (via the Internet) a web site devoted to the works of Sir Joseph Banks:

http://www2.sl.nsw.gov.au/banks/

This ambitious scheme provides facsimile reproduction of approximately 10,000 manuscript pages from the papers of Sir Joseph Banks held in the Mitchell and Dixson collections. Many of these documents have been published in various works before, however this is the first time the collection has been published in facsimile, and extensively indexed.

Journeys in Time 1809 -1822 is a joint project between Macquarie University Library and the State Library of New South Wales to make available full transcripts of the journals of Lachlan and Elizabeth Macquarie in the period 1809 - 1822.

The aims of the Journeys in Time Project are to:

- to provide students, researchers and other interested people with access to full transcriptions of primary source material written by Lachlan and Elizabeth Macquarie via the Internet;

- to contribute towards the documentation of historical research material relating to early Australian colonial history;

- to create a bibliography of primary and secondary source material relating to the Macquaries

This initiative marks the beginning of a larger, more ambitious, long-term project to create an archive of scholarly research materials known as the Lachlan & Elizabeth Macquarie Archive (LEMA).

This Project, based at Macquarie University Library, focuses upon the extensive range of surviving manuscript sources by Lachlan and Elizabeth Macquarie. The website provides students and researchers with access to full-text transcripts of the original documents as well as extensive supporting historical analysis and information.