Resources for Research on Children's Literature

The Information Sciences Library, located on campus at 135 N. Bellefield Avenue, offers a wide array of resources on children's literature. They have a large collection of children’s and young adult books as well as scholarly books, journals, and encyclopedias focused on different aspects of the study of children’s literature and culture.

The Elizabeth Nesbitt Room is located inside the Information Sciences Library. It houses a marvelous collection of materials related to the history of children and their books and media. The volumes in this collection include more than 12,000 books and magazine titles of interest dating from the 1600s through today.

The Chapbook Collection in the Nesbitt Room contains more than 250 chapbooks printed in both England and America between the years 1650 to 1850, while the Nineteenth Century Juvenile Magazine Collection includes issues of such famous children’s periodicals as Aunt Judy’s Magazine, Chatterbox, Little Folks, and St. Nicholas.
The Samuel Goodrich Collection in the Nesbitt Room includes many titles by the immensely popular children’s author Goodrich, whose pen name was Peter Parley. To find out more about the Nesbitt Room’s holdings, click here.
Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood Archives: The Nesbitt Room also houses the videotape archives of a real-life Pittsburgh neighbor - Fred Rogers. The collection contains the videotape archives of the Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood program as well as other materials related to the production of the show. The holdings include well over 700 video recordings of the half hour PBS program and all of the "specials" Mister Rogers has produced during his career.

Hillman Library, the biggest humanities and social sciences library on campus, houses many books about the history of childhood and children’s literature, as well as biographies of children’s authors such as Maria Edgeworth, Lewis Carroll, and J. M. Barrie and scholarly editions of their stories for young people.

The Buhl Social Work Collection, located on the first floor of Hillman, also includes many titles of interest to those studying childhood and children’s culture.
Many of the resources of the University Library System are now available online. The Student Express page enables you to access these resources even when you are not on campus. This page gives you access to the PittCat Library Catalogue, as well as a list of “Databases by Title.” On this “Databases” list you will find a link to the MLA International Bibliography—a great place to start if you are looking for scholarly articles on a given author or text.
One especially fabulous service that the University Library System offers is the “Ask a Librarian” service. If you have a question about how to research a given topic, or how to find a particular resource, you can simply email it to the reference librarians, and one of them will respond. You can access this resource from PittCat (at the top right-hand corner of your screen) or from the Student Express page (click on the “Ask a Question” link), or simply click on the link above.

We are fortunate here at Pitt to have the main branch of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh right in Oakland, just steps away from the Cathedral of Learning.

This branch of the Carnegie Library has a fabulous Children’s Department and an equally terrific collection of books for Teens. Once you join the library, you can check out for free many titles you might be reading in your Children’s Literature Certificate courses. Also, the librarians there can provide valuable information to you about what new books are really hot right now, and what titles you can read if you’re interested in a particular topic.
The Carnegie Library’s Black, White & Read All Over program brings six award-winning children’s authors and illustrators to Oakland every year. Past visitors have included Jon Scieszka, Katherine Patterson, Lois Lowry, and Jack Gantos. Click on the link above to see who’s coming this year!

For a few more tips about how to go about researching some aspect of children’s literature, click here to check out Dr. Marah Gubar’s handout on “Doing Research.”