Sydney's historians had an excellent couple of days last week, revelling in the riches of the past at the State Library. The conference, titled From the Ground Up, which has been advertised on our front page for quite a few weeks, was a big success, showcasing some of the new work being done on Sydney's history, and including some self-examination too, as the Sydney History Group revisited their formation, research and publications from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s. A Festschrift session honouring the work of Dr Shirley Fitzgerald was both inspiring and heartwarming, and made many of us realise how important it is to acknowledge the contributions made by senior colleagues to the field.

There was considerable interest in a revival of some kind of organised Sydney history group, and in a repeat of the conference, maybe in 2013, maybe 2014. The Sydney Journal will be publishing papers from the conference as soon as practically possible, to spread the scholarship more widely, and we are very hopeful that versions of much of the research on show will eventually end up in the Dictionary. Papers ranged across Sydney's space and time, including economic history, geography, cultural history and even artworks based on Sydney's past. Oral history, documentary history and material cultures were all examined. Much chatting was done over the State Library's excellent catering, and some of the tourists who take endless photographs of the front steps of the State Library's Mitchell wing were unaware they were also photographing some of Sydney's most eminent historians, standing in the sunshine. Our warmest thanks go to Dr Matt Bailey of Macquarie University, who did most of the hard organising (and will be guest editing the Sydney Journal special issue with Paul Ashton and Emma Grahame), and to everyone else who helped make the conference a success. Next year in Parramatta? We shall have to see.