The Library’s collection of children’s literature, estimated at 100,000 volumes in 2005, offers a unique insight into changing social trends in children’s publishing. Comprising children’s books published between the 16th and 21st centuries, the Library’s Children’s Literature Collection grows by approximately 2500 items per year. Significant holdings of Australian children’s books are also found in the Moir Collection (a sub-collection of the Australian Rare Books Collection).
The Children’s Literature Collection is composed of three separate collections, each of which has particular strengths that dovetail to provide children’s books from the 16th century to the present day. These collections are:
Ken Pound Collection
Acquired from a private collector in 1994, this Collection consists primarily of early to mid 20th- century Australian and New Zealand children’s books, pamphlets, music, songs, games and ephemera. Variant editions are a feature of this Collection, as are little known ephemeral materials by Australia’s renowned children’s book illustrator Ida Rentoul Outhwaite.
This Collection includes the Library’s oldest children’s book, The Scholemaster, which was published in 1571. It also contains tiny chapbooks sold by itinerant salesmen in the 18th and 19th centuries, pop-up books, early alphabet books, Victorian toy books, Edwardian gift books, limited editions and signed copies. The Rare Children’s Books Collection’s strength lies in the 16th- to 19th-century material, showing publishing trends in children’s books in an overseas context and later in an Australian context.
