The Collectors Weekly, a website for collectors and antique enthusiasts, has selected the University of Florida’s Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature website for its Hall of Fame (http://www.collectorsweekly.com/hall-of-fame/view/baldwin-library-of-childrens-literature). The Collectors Weekly highlights websites with deep reference content reflecting unique collections and which demonstrate “a passion for collecting.” The University of Florida Baldwin Library is considered one of the “best on the web,” according to The Collectors Weekly.
The Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature — http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/UFDC/UFDC.aspx?c=juv — in the Department of Special and Area Studies Collections at the University of Florida’s George A. Smathers Libraries contains more than 100,000 volumes published in Great Britain and the United States from the early 1700s through the current year. Its holdings of more than 800 early American imprints is the second largest such collection in the United States.
The product of Ruth Baldwin’s 40-year collection development efforts, this vast assemblage of literature printed primarily for children offers an equally vast territory of topics for the researcher to explore: education and upbringing, family and gender roles, civic values, racial, religious, and moral attitudes, literary style and format, and the arts of illustration and book design.
A great strength of the collection is the many English and American editions of the same work. Other strengths of the collection include 300 editions of Robinson Crusoe, 100 editions of Pilgrim’s Progress, fables, juvenile biography, 19th century science and natural history, 19th century alphabet books, moral tales, fairy tales, 19th century juvenile periodicals, 19th century boys’ adventure stories, 20th century boys’ and girls’ series, Little Golden Books, and juvenile publications of the American Sunday School Union and other tract societies. Scholars, students, and researchers from the University of Florida and worldwide continue to request assistance from this collection.
Funding for digitization of this collection was provided in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature is a contributor to the International Children’s Digital Library and a founding partner of The Center for Children’s Literature and Culture at the University of Florida.