The Library of Congress, in Washington, DC serves as the national library for the
USA. Not until the enactment of the Copyright Law of 1870 was it ensured that the
national library would receive each year a copy of every book printed in the country.
Efforts were begun in the 1920s to identify and separate out some children’s books. In
1963, a Children’s Book Section in the General Reference and Bibliography Division of
the Reference Department was organised. It was renamed the Children’s Literature
Center. It houses the largest collection of non-English language children’s books in the
USA.
Meanwhile, the Rare Book Collection of the Library of Congress attracted subject
collections, too. The Jean Hersholt Collection of Hans Christian Andersen has original
manuscripts and correspondence. Not surprisingly, the Danish Royal Library also
collects H.C.Andersen editions in all languages. Staff members there have compiled
bibliographies of his books published in each of numerous foreign languages. For
example, in the English language alone it lists more than a thousand editions.
Most countries today have library special collections devoted to children’s books. In
Wales, the Welsh National Centre for Children’s Literature is located in Aberystwyth.
Each Scandinavian country has a book centre. These include the Swedish Children’s
Book Institute in Stockholm, the Finnish Institute for Children’s Literature in Tampere,
the Norwegian Institute for Children’s Literature in Oslo, and the Danish Pedagogical
Library in Copenhagen. Early in its development the founding director of the Swedish
Institute made a list of all Swedish children’s books published and then began to
acquire them. Now the Institute is the place for the Swedish copyright copy of each new
children’s title to come directly from the publisher. Every doctoral dissertation on
children’s literature in the country is co-published by a commercial firm and the
Institute. It collects Swedish language books published in other countries as well as
Swedish books translated into other languages. The Institute has been a leader in
international cooperation on issues such as cataloguing and subject headings for
children’s literature and its book collection is on the university library’s on-line
computerised catalogue system. It is also notable for its reference works and scholarly
periodicals. Among the specialities in the Swedish Institute for Children’s Books is a
collection by Astrid Lindgren, best known for her Pippi Longstocking books; she was the
second recipient of the Hans Christian Andersen Award, given to her in 1958 by the
International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY).
The comparable Finnish Institute holds a remarkable collection of work by the
internationally famous Tove Jansson, author of Moomintroll books.
Dromkeen, ‘a home for Australian Children’s Literature’, is located in Riddells Creek,
Victoria. Collected there are first editions of early Australian children’s literature, such
as Ida Rentoul Outhwaite’s Fairyland (1926) and manuscripts by contemporary Ivan
Southall and Patricia Wrightson who received the Hans Christian Andersen Award for
the body of her work in 1986.
HistoricalFounded by Isaiah Thomas in 1812, the American Antiquarian Society’s collecting scope
emphasises books published in America up to 1820. It now has more than 3,000
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