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There is no one central resource where one can find information about the history of Western Australia. The general histories that have been written are out of date and need revision. It is almost a century since the State has had a reference work like the encyclopedia created by State Librarian, J. S. Battye, in 1912. This reference is still used by historians, as there has been nothing to replace it. It is more than twenty years since the widely acclaimed publication of the volumes in the sesquicentenary series in 1979 and of C. T. Stannage’s edited collection A New History of Western Australia in 1981. These publications, which are all out of print, do not provide easy access to the level of detail that will be available in the Historical Encyclopedia. Nor do they include the results of research undertaken over the past two decades, much of which has been informed by new theoretical developments and a focus on the history of groups that were previously marginalised or ignored.