Aora Children’s Literature Research Centre NSW Inc. [1] was a volunteer managed research collection of children's literature that existed from 1992 - 2013 in Sydney, New South Wales.
The collection was established to preserve a perspective on Australian literary heritage, including a selection of books children in New South Wales had grown up reading since white settlement. [2] The collection was not limited to Australian titles and included a professional collection of books and reviewing journals. The material in the collection had been sourced from donations by New South Wales public libraries, New South Wales Department of Education and Training Offices at Ryde, the New South Wales School Magazine office and private individuals. The collection included more than 20,000 items.
The AORA patron was Dr Maurice Saxby AM, a world-renowned authority on Australian Children's Literature. [3]
Aora can trace its history back to the 1960s when Dr Margaret Trask AM, a lecturer in children's literature, saved discarded books from public libraries to be a historical resource collection for her students. This collection was returned to Sydney public libraries in 1992 and a group of former children's librarians maintained the collection as it expanded with donations from the New South Wales Department of Education offices at Ryde, bibliographer Dr Kerry White, Penguin publishing, authors, public library deleted materials and individual donors. [3]
Housed at St Peters Public School in Sydney, the collection was jointly supported by the Metropolitan Public Libraries Association and New South Wales Department of Education and Training from 1992 until 2006. In 2008 ownership of the collection was handed over to a community volunteer committee in partnership with Department of Education and Training, New South Wales. [4] A new management committee was established and work began to develop a plan for the future. [5] [6] The aim of the collection was to make it the children's literature research collection for New South Wales, available to students and researchers of children's literature and the general public. A newsletter was produced and circulated to public library librarians, school librarians, teachers, academics, publishers, bookshops and parents of students at the school. A business plan for its future launched by the State Librarian of New South Wales in 2010 was only partly implemented. [3]
Aora closed in December 2013 due to rising insurance costs and low membership. [3] The collection was dispersed into the hands of many individuals.
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Marjorie Cotton Isherwood, best known by the name Marjorie Cotton (1913–2003), was the first professionally qualified children's librarian in New South Wales, Australia. She initiated programs that are the basis of services to children in Australian public libraries today.
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AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource, usually referred to simply as AustLit, is an internet-based, non-profit collaboration between researchers and librarians from Australian universities, led by the University of Queensland (UQ), designed to comprehensively record the history of Australian literary and story-making cultures. AustLit is an encyclopaedia of Australian writers and writing.
The Newsletter: an Australian Paper for Australian People was an English-language broadsheet newspaper published weekly in Sydney, Australia by Charles John Haynes. It was originally published as The Elector from 1890 to 1900.
Ida Emily Leeson was the Mitchell Librarian at the State Library of New South Wales from December 1932 – April 1946. She was the first woman to achieve a senior management position in an Australian library.
William Herbert Ifould OBE was an Australian librarian and floriculturalist who was instrumental in the development of library services in New South Wales. He was the Principal Librarian at the Public Library of New South Wales from 1912 until his retirement in 1942.
Henry Maurice Saxby was an Australian educator, author, critic, reviewer and authority on Australian children's literature.
Harrison Bryan was an Australian librarian. Bryan was, later, University Librarian at the University of Queensland and University of Sydney and later Director-General of the National Library of Australia.
Phyllis Mander-Jones MBE was an Australian born librarian and archivist who helped establish the archival profession in Australia.
Joyce Fardell (1923–2007) was an Australian teacher librarian and advocate for children's literature. She was instrumental in establishing teacher librarian roles in New South Wales Schools, establishing the principle of teacher-librarians being qualified both as teachers and as librarians.
Peter Board High School, known from 1962-1985 as North Ryde High School, was a government-funded co-educational comprehensive secondary day school, that was located in North Ryde, a northern suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The school opened in 1962 and closed in 1998.
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