Children's Books

Lindsay Shaw Collection

The Monash University Library Rare Books Collection has extensive holdings of children’s material, over 12,000 items. These form the Lindsay Shaw Collection.

Lindsay Shaw was the Secretary of the Monash Faculty of Education when he began to donate books to the Library in 1979. Lindsay is a major collector of Australian children’s books and began his gift to Monash by donating sets of Ethel Turner and Mary Grant Bruce. At that time Brenda Niall from the Monash English Department was researching these two writers for her book, Seven little billabongs (1979). She also used the collection for her 1984 book, Australia through the looking-glass: children's fiction 1830-1980.

Lindsay continues to donate books for the collection and we supplement his gifts by purchase of English, American and other Australian children’s books.

Opening of the exhibition

The Children's Books exhibition was opened on Tuesday 13 April 2010 by Dr Rebecca Do Rozario, of the School of English, Communications and Performance Studies, Faculty of Arts, Monash University. A transcript of Dr Do Rozario's speech is available here.

The exhibition can be seen from 13 April - 30 June 2010 at the Rare Books Exhibition space, Level 1, ISB wing, Sir Louis Matheson Library, Clayton campus, Monash University.

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Monash University Library is pleased to be able to make this virtual exhibition available to the broader community. In providing images representing the works in our rare and special collections, we are not aware of any copyrights or other rights being infringed. If you have a question about Monash University’s presentation of these images submit your query through this form.