Did you know that the Nicholson Library has its own Juvenile Literature Collection?
The collection includes award-winning books at various reading levels designed for kids between kindergarten and 5th grade. The collection also has a wide range of curriculum books to help you design your lesson plan.
Find the collection on the ground floor next to the reference stacks!
Using some advanced searching techniques you can tell the library catalog to only search curriculum or juvenile materials. Below is a step-by-step guide with examples:
For this example, we are going to search juvenile math books.
1. Determine if you want to search curriculum or juvenile books. In the example above we are searching for juvenile books. Put (b8:juvenile) in the search box. (b:8 narrows the search down by shelving location)
2. Add an operator to tell your search how to build upon itself. In this example, we are going to use AND because we are searching both for juvenile books AND for our keyword. Add AND to the right of your first step.
3. Determine what keyword you want to search with. In this example, we are searching for math books. Put (kw:math) to the right of your second step.
This is what your final search will look like: (b8:juvenile) AND (kw:math). See the example in the box to the right.
A former Anderson University student, Elizabeth Harp York, began her children's book collection by purchasing first editions of books featuring the works of 18th - 19th century illustrators such as Randolph Caldecott and Edmund Dulac. The search for other classics led her to Beatrix Potter, A.A. Milne, James Barry, and Rudyard Kipling. Then she came upon Robert Louis Stevenson and many more. York broadened her range of collections over the years until she had 200 to 250 Mother Goose, ABC, 123 books; 350 pop-up books; and 250 to 300 Christmas books. She also collected early primers, chapbooks, and books by more contemporary children's book authors and illustrators.
It was Elizabeth's dream to share these books with Anderson University, so in 2008, she and James contributed funds to build a rare-collections facility and a reading room in the Anderson University Nicholson Library. In 2009, the University dedicated the Elizabeth York Rare Books & Special Collections. Today, we continue to celebrate the imaginations of long-ago children's illustrators and writers while nurturing the dreams of readers, writers, and artists of children's books in the future through the Annual Elizabeth York Children's Literature Festival.
The York Collection materials do not circulate, meaning you can not check them out of the library. However, the library staff would be happy to make an appointment with you to view the collection in the York Reading Room on the first floor.
