Cirrus@Austlit

'State Library Victoria holds the most comprehensive collection of Australian children’s books in any public institution in the world. The Library’s Children’s Literature Collection fundamentally changed with the acquisition in 1994 of a private collection of 25,000 Australian and New Zealand children’s books amassed by Melbourne collector Ken Pound. This took the collection above 100,000 items, increasing the Library’s holdings of variant editions, ephemera, advertising, print-based games and short-lived Australian publishing house titles. Today the Library holds approximately 150,000 children’s books published over five centuries. This remarkable collection is of world significance.' (Introduction)