 The State Records Office operates under its own legislation, the State Records Act 2000, which was formally proclaimed in the Government Gazette on 30 November 2001.The SRO is an independent government agency within Western Australia's Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries.The nucleus of the state archives collections is the Colonial Secretary's Office records acquired in 1903 by the first librarian of the Public Library, Dr James Sykes Battye.