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Libraries and Research Collections
Karen Nelson Hoyle
IntroductionBooks written especially for children have comprised an increasingly large and
important segment of the book publishing industry ever since the mid-1940s. During
these years of rapid growth in the field private collectors discovered children’s literature
as a promising speciality for their efforts. At the same time student researchers, other
scholars, and individual writers and illustrators began to find studies of original materials
for the creation of books for children rewarding topics for serious investigation.
Fortunately at this same time the growth of children’s librarianship and the teaching
of children’s literature throughout colleges and universities led to the establishment of
special collections of materials for research in this field and the development of
numerous private collections with the same goal. The result is that today there are many
collections, both public and private, where such scholars may find a wealth of valuable
material for their investigations.
One large problem, however, remains before these resources can come close to fulfilling
their maximum potential. That is the lack of a comprehensive and up-to-date source of
information about where the early works and corrected manuscripts and sketches for
book illustrations for any specific author or illustrator may be located (useful volumes
are cited at the end of this article).
Scholarship is on the rise. Research methods vary, so a number of researchers are
dependent on books, while others require access to related materials such as
manuscripts, studies for book illustration, or correspondence. While some collections
may duplicate others to a large extent, there are a few collections which focus mainly on
very specific contents found nowhere else. Several libraries compared their holdings to
Jacob N.Blanck’s Peter Parley to Penrod: A Bibliographical Description of the Best-loved
American Juvenile Books (1938) published in the USA from 1827 to 1926.
Libraries and research collections specialising in the field of children’s literature for
more than a century include the Free Library of Philadelphia and New York Public
Library. Abraham S.Wolf Rosenbach’s Early American Children’s Books, 1682–1847
(1928) proved to be a well-respected publication. The dramatic increase in number is a
largely post-1945 phenomenon in the USA. Several— including the International Youth
Library in Munich, Germany, the Kerlan in Minneapolis, Minnesota and the Osborne in