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Australian Schools Textbook Collection
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Australian Schools Textbook Collection

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The Australian Schools Textbook Collection comprises textbooks used in Australian primary and secondary schools wherever published. Also included is school curricula, student workbooks, exam / test papers, and related material such as teacher's classroom manuals. A particular strength of the collection is the large number of nineteenth century Australian publications that it contains. The collection is complemented by the Children's Literature Research Collections.

The Australian Schools Textbook Collection has been formed over the past 20 years. It is the largest of its type in Australia, comprising over 20,000 titles, and is considered to be of national significance.

Identifying and locating material in the catalogue

Items in the Australian Schools Textbook Collection are held at the Geelong Waterfront and Melbourne campus libraries and are listed in the Library Catalogue. Material from the Collection has the prefixes:

DU WATERFT SPTXT
DU MELB SPTXT

Research Projects

The Australian Schools Textbook Collection provides excellent research resources for:

  • History of curricula
  • History of education in Australia
  • Socialisation process
  • Growth of nationalism
  • Perceptions of gender, class and race
  • Perceptions of cultural and social histor

Virtual Exhibitions

"School Day Memories - Student Workbooks" is an online display of a sample of covers of students' class workbooks from the 1930s.

Other Web Sites of Interest

Hope Collection: History of Primary Education in South Australia (University of South Australia)