In a letter from John Lonie, convenor of Adelaide Homosexual Alliance, to James Fraser of the Canadian Gay Archives, John mentioned that various people in Australia had been collecting material independently of each other and they came together at the archives workshop at the Fourth National Homosexual Conference in Sydney in August 1978. John Lonie wrote: ‘A working group concerned with libraries and with archives met and the basics of a national organisation has been started. As it happened, people were all working away in isolation of each other and hopefully, now some coordination is at hand.’