The Source is a subject guide to children’s literature: books, short stories, traditional literature and poetry from around the world with an emphasis on Australian and New Zealand literature.The Source consists of four continuously updated and revised databases:
• Books & Authors : A database of over 17 000 picture books, children’s, young adult novels and collections which are searchable by subject, author or illustrator, title, type, genre, series and sequels. Subject searches can be refined by age, genre and type. Brief biographies of authors and illustrators are included.
• Poetry : A database of over 15 400 poems from around the world which appear in the 380 anthologies indexed. Of these the full texts of over 3000 poems in the public domain are available on The Source . The poetry database is searchable by subject, poet, title, genre, and first line.
• Short Stories : An index to over 2800 short stories including fairytales, folktales, myths and legends linked to the collections in which they appear. All are annotated, the full text of some is included. The short story index is searchable by author, title, subject, genre and age.
• Awards : A database of the winners and short-listed books for 44 Australian, New Zealand and international children’s literature awards. This database is searchable by author, title, award and year of award.
Where deemed useful, links are provided between databases and external websites. The Listmaker option enables users to easily construct booklists using information from whichever fields they choose. The Support Material button links to an index of downloadable PDF files of teachers’ notes to selected books (in addition to links to existing notes available on other websites) and to units of work. Books that are currently out-of-print have been included if there is a reasonable expectation that they will be held in school and public library collections.
Compilers of The Source :
Dr Kerry White has a background in academic teaching and is the author of Australian Children’s Books; a bibliography Volume 2 1973-1988 (Melbourne University Press 1992): Australian Children’s Books; a bibliography Vol 3 1889-2000 (Melbourne University Press 2004) ; Australian Children’s Fiction, the Subject Guide (Jacaranda Press 1993) and Australian Children’s Fiction, the Subject Guide Update (Jacaranda Wiley Press 1996).
The New Zealand content has been compiled by Trevor Agnew who has taught in Southland and Canterbury secondary schools since 1968, specialising in English and History. He was New Zealand’s first full-time trained Teacher-Librarian, at Hillmorton High School from 1986 to 2001 and was the winner of the Nada Beardsley Literacy Award for ‘services in the promotion of literacy’, Canterbury Reading Association, 1993. He is a regular contributor of book reviews and articles to the Christchurch Press, Magpies Magazine and The Literature Base magazine.