The author has been active in the IS discipline since 1970—that is to say, not from the very beginning, but from very shortly afterwards. Because the author was a contemporaneous observer of many of the phases that the chapter deals with—and often a participant and even a protagonist—his perspectives are inevitably embedded in the analysis. In addition, the author is not a trained historian. For these reasons, the chapter is entitled ‘a retrospective’ rather than ‘a history’. It has, however, drawn on a wide variety of sources and will hopefully make a contribution to an emergent ‘court history’ of the discipline.

An attempt has been made to present information dispassionately; the degree to which that could be achieved is qualified, however, due partly to the author’s inherent and unavoidable biases, but partly because of the conflicting aim of achieving at least some degree of readability and stimulation.

My thanks to Guy Gable and Bob Smyth for providing the stimulus for this chapter, and for the important inputs provided by them and other members of the IS-in-Oz project team.

The chapter has benefited greatly from interviews with the following key players in IS in Australia, listed in alphabetical order: Cyril Brookes, Bill Caelli, Frank Land, Stewart Leech, Gerry Maynard, Graham Pervan and Ron Weber. Many other senior members of the discipline made important contributions, including Dick Mason, Ann Moffatt, Phillip Ein-Dor, Iris Vessey and Bob Galliers. In relation to the PIT scheme, my thanks to Gerry Maynard, John Austin, John Growder, Rob Thomsett, Jonathan Palmer and Kerry Webb.

Responsibility for the errors, the omissions, the unfortunate phrasings and the judgementally impregnated expressions rests with the author. The electronic version of the chapter is intended to be a living document for a while at least, and suggestions for improvement of all kinds should be submitted to the author. It is intended that this chapter and the supporting documents will be mirrored on appropriate web sites. A living version of this document is available at http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/SOS/AISHist.html