It's time to unveil the latest version of the Dictionary of Sydney!
Lots to read over the wet summer ahead. State Library of Victoria, H98.105/2
There are 42 new articles, covering the usual wide range of subjects and viewpoints. We’ll be taking you further into this new content on the blog over the next few weeks, but here is the whole list, divided into some new categories:
New material adding to our histories of indigenous Sydney: all you historians out there working on Sydney’s indigenous history, we are always looking for more…
New material on Sydney’s communities, which are always among our most popular articles: if you are an expert on the history of any particular cultural group in Sydney which hasn’t been included yet, please get in touch!
New articles on work, technology and life in Sydney: a city of this size needs all kinds of builders, infrastructure, occupations, cultures and institutions, and we intend to cover them all eventually.
Douglass Baglin's photograph of Peace, from the front door of Fairwater, Double Bay. Used with kind permission of the Baglin estateNew entries on Sydney’s arts and culture, and its development over the years: including the disputes and dissent that cultural work always inspires. We hope to bring you a lot more on Sydney’s visual and performing arts next year.
New material on Sydney’s commercial life, and its cycles and changes. The emphasis this time is on the great department stores, with some great work by Michael Lech on the giants in Sydney retailing.
New biographies of musicians and performers of Sydney: individuals who kept Sydney’s performing cultures going, often at great cost to themselves. This time, most are musicians:
L'Estrange's death-defying feat of tight rope walking over Middle Harbour, from the Illustrated Sydney News, 28 April 1877 (SLNSW TN115)
but we also have a more unclassifiable performer, the great, if rather accident-prone, ‘Australian Blondin’:
New biographies of City of Sydney aldermen and mayors: there will be more next year on these founders of Sydney’s municipal governance. This time, we have:
There are also two new enhancements that we are really pleased with.Multimedia browse — now you can browse through the Dictionary’s images and multimedia on one page, sorted by our informative titles. Use Ctrl-F to find your keywords.
Cite this — now you can easily cut and paste accurate URLs, citations and Wikipedia reference code for all entries, just by clicking the Cite this link. It brings up a popup that looks like this, with all the details of the entry you are looking at auto-generated for you. These enhancements are the work of our colleagues at Arts eResearch, Sydney University. Thanks go to them, as always.
You can now find the URL, citation details and Wikipedia code for citing every entry right there on the top right, under the 'Cite this' link.
In addition, we’ve been beavering away writing captions and descriptions and making thousands of links, so you’ll find the whole Dictionary much enriched.
Enjoy!
