This chronological, non-circulating, historical research collection includes nearly 8,000 books created for or used by children from birth to adolescence.
A wide range of genres, formats, and realia reveal the breadth of literature for children, mostly from the Anglo English-speaking world, but not exclusively. Characters which represent a variety of human characteristics and ethnicities are included as well as books from over 50 different countries and their languages.
The University Libraries are committed to supporting research and offer broad access to the historical record in order to expand knowledge, confront the past, and learn from it. The collection reveals how children have been treated and valued by adults through the ages in different societies and social groups.
The collection can also serve to illustrate changes in children’s book design, publishing, and use from manuscripts and early printed books to books published into the early 21st century.
Some specimens (through later editions) pre-date 1850, with the earliest being Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy (monastic school children memorized portions of it as early as the 6th century). Other books were published in the mid- to late 18th century, the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, often called the “Golden Age of Children’s Literature.” Many more were published in the second half of the 20th century and the early years of the 21st century when books for children proliferated.
Reference books, journals, and realia support and supplement the children’s book collection and provide additional resources for research .
The bulk of the collection was acquired over a 40-year period to support Professor Bingham’s research and her teaching in the Department of Reading/Language Arts at Oakland University. Books were purchased from public library and AAUW book sales, used bookstores, book clubs, and the all-too-rare children’s bookstores in America and abroad. A number of books weeded from OU’s Educational Resources Laboratory Children’s Literature Collection are also included, as well as some books withdrawn from OU’s Kresge Library.
Many books in the collection were gifts from Professor Bingham’s friends, students, and colleagues, and from authors and illustrators, and publishing companies. Some facsimiles of early children’s books and reference materials were gifts to her as a member of the Friends of the Edgar Osborne and Lillian H. Smith Collection of Early Children’s Books at the Toronto Public Library. Additional facsimiles from the Osborne Collection were purchased with a grant from the Oakland Alumni Association.
While the collection contains numerous first editions (some inscribed), Professor Bingham made no attempt to obtain first editions. Some works are represented by facsimiles and reprints. The collection is organized chronologically, as suggested by Jane Bingham, to help make the evolution or development of children’s literature more apparent.
