National Centre for Australian Children's Literature facts for kids

The National Centre for Australian Children's Literature, formerly known as the Lu Rees Archives, is a not-for-profit study and research centre housed at the University of Canberra Library. The Centre "strives to enhance the appreciation of Australian children's literature by collecting, preserving and making available wide-ranging resources", including "both the literature and the historical and cultural context in which it was created".

Collections

An outline of the collection development objectives can be found in the current collection development policy, the Lu Rees Archives of Australian Children's Literature Strategic Plan, and on the webpage ‘List of item types held at the archives.’ The Lu Rees Archives has collected material by and about Australian children's book authors and illustrators, including manuscripts, artworks, books (over 20,000 works, including over 2400 translations in more than 53 languages), artifacts, reference material, theses, rare books, periodicals, and over 390 research files featuring thirty different categories of materials. The Archives houses two publishers' archives, the Walter McVitty Books (donated in 2000) and Omnibus Books (donated in 2004), and has extensive photographic and audio material relating to Australian children's literature. An ongoing project to develop 'Artwork Frameworks' to record artwork held by the Archive to aid with cataloguing and research began in 2009. An aim of the Archives is to collect all the individual editions of published works.

Significance

• Since the year 2000, The Lu Rees Archive has been a contributor to AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource, originally providing 12,000 bibliographic records (including indexed reviews and articles on Australian children's literature).
• To assist researchers, the Archives staff have created unique Author Finding Aids and in 2010, the Archives "assisted 393 clients who visited or contacted the archives".
• The Archives have presented a number of significant events celebrating Australian children's authors and their works, including:
  • In 2001, the Archives established the annual 'Walter McVitty Lectures,' sponsored by the National Museum of Australia, which ran for three years (Mem Fox 2002, Morris Gleitzman 2003, and Emily Rodda 2005).
  • In 2007, The Words... Pictures... Book! Exhibition.
  • In 2011, a celebration of Australian children's books in translation featuring Emily Rodda, an exhibition of Archives original artwork and cataloguing of 470 books in 30 languages.
• In 2009, a report on behalf of the National Executive of The Children's Book Council of Australia by Marj Kirkland, found the Archives provided an "exceptional repository of knowledge and heritage related to Australian children's literature, whose existence should never be endangered".
• In a significance report, an external expert, Graeme Powell, identified the significance of the Archives as follows:
  • its book collection post-1960 is comparable to National and State Libraries.
  • its collection of translated works are among Australia's strongest
  • its 400 comprehensive research files on authors and illustrators are "unmatched" in Australia.
  • its manuscripts and artworks feature Australia's most important creators and "is of considerable value to researchers studying the artistic development of particular illustrators."
  • its resources are open access and this is valued by researchers.

Funding

• The National Executive of The Children's Book Council of Australia funds one part-time administrative officer, and the ACT Branch provides an annual donation.
• Donations – In 1988, the Archives achieved deductible gift recipient status, with eligibility to receive gifts under the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program including monetary donations (authors, illustrators and publishers can donate published and unpublished material under the program, and by the year 2005, 117 publishers had donated material). Members of the public also support the Archives with donations.
• In kind support for the archives has been offered by the University of Canberra, and is part of a formal agreement between the University Library and The Children's Book Council of Australia.

To secure the future of The Lu Rees Archives, "the Archives aims to create an endowment fund of $1,000,000 by 2020".

Volunteers

The Archives has a strong volunteer body with various expertise who pursue specific projects (e.g. preservation of works) and progress the strategic plan. The volunteer program is permanent and essential to daily functioning of the Archive. Currently, the positions of Collections Development Manager, and Editor of the 'Lu Rees Archives : Notes, Books and Authors' Journal, are voluntary. In 2010, volunteers contributed over 2013 hours of unpaid work to the archives.

Publications

‘The Lu Rees Archives : Notes, Books and Authors’ (ISSN 0725-7015) journal, begun in 1981, is published once per year and contains articles by authors, illustrators and publishers on children's literature, as well as news from the Archive (an index of the journal is available online). The Archives annual reports and Strategic Plan are available online.

Access

The Archives has an extensive website http://www.canberra.edu.au/lu-rees, and information on how to access the catalogue and author/illustrator files online. The Archives is open two days per week, and allows access at other times by appointment.