Australia’s Royal Societies have been at the forefront of intellectual thought and practice since the precursor of the Royal Society of New South Wales came into being in July 1821. They each have an immense reservoir of collective wisdom and to this day, continue to produce authoritative peer-reviewed journals, proceedings, and significant publications.
One of the foremost collections of Australian Royal Societies literature belongs to the Basser Library at the Australian Academy of Science. The Library holds original editions of the Journals and Proceedings of each of Society, beginning in 1857 and continuing all the way up until 2011. Many of these publications can now be found online but in a world where so much is transient, there is something to be said for old-fashioned leather-bound and hand-illustrated books.