Getting Started
Welcome to your Subject Guide, where you'll find tailored guidance and advice on key library resources.
Roehampton has strong collections of materials to support the study of children's literature, both in print and online. These include primary sources, historical and contemporary children's book collections, critical works and commentary, biography and autobiography of children's authors and illustrators and children's literature journals.
Reference, Handbooks & Companions
- American National Biography Online This link opens in a new window
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Profiles of nearly 20,000 Americans from all eras who have influenced and shaped the USA's history and culture. From missionaries to musicians, social workers to statisticians, cowboys to chemists, and Vikings to astronauts. Includes people from pre-colonial times to those who have died in the last 5 years.
- Cambridge Companions This link opens in a new window
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Includes the Companions in: Philosophy, Religion and Culture, Literature and the Classics and Music.
- Cambridge Histories This link opens in a new window
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American and British history, economic and scientific history, philosophy, religious studies, theatre studies, warfare and literary studies.
- Encyclopedia of Children's Literature This link opens in a new window
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Includes biographies of every major author and illustrator and essays on all genres of children's literature, individual works and prominent trends and themes throughout the world.
- Oxford Dictionary of National Biography This link opens in a new window
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50,000 biographies of people who shaped the history of the British Isles and beyond, from the earliest times to the year 2000.
- Oxford English Dictionary Online This link opens in a new window
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A fully searchable online version of the Second print edition of the OED.
- Oxford Handbooks Online This link opens in a new window
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The Oxford Handbooks series brings together the world’s leading scholars to write articles that survey the current state of scholarship in their field. The articles review the key issues, reveal original arguments and concepts, and set the agenda for new research.
- Oxford Reference Online This link opens in a new window
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This collection of reference works allows cross searching of over 100 dictionaries and encyclopedias published by Oxford University Press.
Print Books, Special Collections & Archives at University of Roehampton Library
Most print books for Children's Literature can be found on the Third Floor at classmarks 808 to 820 - see below for all location details. We also have some very special historical collections and archives in Children's Literature.
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Ground floor |
Classmark |
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Bibliographies of children’s books |
011.6 |
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Books about children’s books (History, etc) |
028.52 |
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First floor |
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School Experience Collection (SEC) |
P = Picture books IF = Infant Fiction JF = Junior Fiction ANT = Anthologies Junior Non-fiction – by subject classmark |
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Second floor |
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Illustration and design of children’s books |
741.642 |
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Third floor |
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Guides to writing children’s books |
808.068 |
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Academic and reference works |
809.89282 |
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Children’s literature in English (USA) |
810.99282 |
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Children’s books in education |
820.7 |
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Children’s literature in English (UK/Ireland) |
820.99282 |
Our Special Collections and Archives in Children's Literature include:
- Children's Literature Collection This collection exists to support children's literature studies at Roehampton and the work of the National Centre for Research in Children's Literature (NCRCL). It is a reference collection of about 3,000 critical, theoretical, bibliographical and reference works. The Collection also holds runs of approximately 40 specialist children's literature journals.
- Children's Literature Digital Collection The Children's Literature Collection is a specialist collection within the university library. It exists to support children's literature studies at Roehampton and the work of the National Centre for Research in Children's Literature (NCRCL).
- Richmal Crompton Collection Richmal Crompton (1890 - 1969) is best known for the Just William stories which were written between 1919 – 1969. Deposited with the Archives and Special Collections by the author’s heirs and executors in 2008, this is one of the most comprehensive archive collections of an author’s life and work.
Digital Archives and other Research Resources
The Foyle Special Collections and Archives has a selection of digital content from its collections. This includes historical photographs, images of archival material as well as publication fragments (in addition to the Roehampton Digital Collections). The content can be made available to individuals upon request.
Specialist databases
Databases are large, searchable collections of academic materials. Some provide access to full-text journal articles, whilst others provide abstract or citation information about articles. The content of most databases is indexed in 'Search Everything' on UR Library Search, so you can find the articles there too; but for more advanced, precise search options you can go to the individual databases.
- ProQuest One Literature (formerly Literature Online) This link opens in a new window
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Provides access to full text journals, dissertations, ebooks, primary works, video and reference works. It offers an international and interdisciplinary perspective on literary topics with sources from all over the world. Also included are the ProQuest Black Writing Collection, and the World Literature Collection.
- Children's Literature Review (part of Literature Criticism Online) This link opens in a new window
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Access to Children's Literature Review is available for volumes 98 (2005) to 232 (2019).
- Education Research Complete This link opens in a new window
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Covers all levels of education, from early childhood to higher education, plus multilingual education, health education and testing
- ERIC (Education Research Information Center) This link opens in a new window
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Journal articles, theses and conferences on education, mostly published in the USA but with good UK and international coverage.
- Hockliffe Project This link opens in a new window
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Index of the Hockliffe Collection of British children's books published from 1685 to the mid-twentieth century, held at the University of Bedfordshire. Includes full text digital copies of many titles.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new window
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Hundreds of full text journals and eBooks in the arts, humanities, social sciences and life sciences.
- Literature Criticism Online This link opens in a new window
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Literature Criticism Online is the largest, most extensive compilation of literary commentary available. It includes scholarly and popular commentary from broadsheets, pamphlets, encyclopedias, books and periodicals.
- Project Gutenberg (Open Access Resource) This link opens in a new window
Provides access to over 60,000 free eBooks; also discoverable through UR Library Search.
- Project Muse This link opens in a new window
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Provides access to journal articles, eBooks and reviews in the humanities and social sciences. Spotlight on Project Muse blog post.
These databases provide digital archives of historical source material, from old books and newspaper articles to pamphlets and theatre playbills.
Read more about these resources in our Spotlight on Primary Sources blog post.
- Gale Primary Sources This link opens in a new window
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A cross-searchable platform of eight databases containing digital reproductions of newspapers, periodicals, books and ephemera from the 17th to 20th centuries, including archives of the Illustrated London News, the Listener, Times & Times Literary Supplement (TLS).
- British Library Newspapers This link opens in a new window
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The British Library’s archives of searchable facsimiles of regional and national newspapers from the 19th century.
- British Periodicals This link opens in a new window
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Periodicals from the late seventeenth to the early twentieth century.
- Eighteenth Century Collections Online This link opens in a new window
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Full text searching of millions of pages of history, literature, religion, law, fine arts, science and more.
- Guardian and Observer (ProQuest Historical Newspapers) This link opens in a new window
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Local, regional and national UK news archive from 1791 - 2003. Note: to access current issues, see Pressreader.
- Illustrated London News This link opens in a new window
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A digital archive of the world's first weekly illustrated newspaper from 1842 to 2003, providing contemporary accounts and images of significant British and world events.
- John Johnson Collection This link opens in a new window
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Archive of printed ephemera covering everyday life in Britain in the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
- Nineteenth Century Collections Online This link opens in a new window
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Primary sources covering British politics, society, and culture, including theatre, music and literature.
- Nineteenth Century UK Periodicals This link opens in a new window
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Access to close to 100 periodicals for the study of British life in the 19th century - from women to sports and leisure, and from children to humour.
- Periodicals Archive Online This link opens in a new window
An archive of hundreds of digitized journals in the arts, humanities and social sciences.
- Times Digital Archive This link opens in a new window
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The Times newspaper in facsimile from 1785 - 2019.
Other major collections catalogues and digitised collections
- International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY)The International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) is a non-profit organization which represents an international network of people from all over the world who are committed to bringing books and children together.
- International Children's Digital LibraryThe ICDL is a rich resource which can be used in a wonderfully wide range of situations by children, parents, teachers, librarians and others from all walks of life. Children can expand upon the stories to create games; parents can extract themes to help explain important lessons; teachers can utilize the multicultural nature of the collection to teach languages.
- Seven Stories: the National Centre for Children's BooksA charity dedicated to collecting, preserving and celebrating children’s books, with a museum and archive in Newcastle upon Tyne.