An exciting new era for research and discovery in Australian literature has dawned with the development of an electronic database of more than 40,000 Australian authors and more than 360,000 works of creative and critical literature.

Known as AustLit: Australian Literature Gateway, it is one of the largest humanities projects ever funded having secured $1 million from the Australian Research Council (ARC) and a further $2 million in partner cash and in-kind contributions between 2000 and 2002.

The gateway can be accessed at www.austlit.edu.au and offers libraries and researchers a single entry point to authoritative and constantly updated information.

After 18 months in development, the database was launched earlier this year at the National Library of Australia in Canberra.

Content manager Kerry Kilner, based at UQ's Australian Studies Centre, said the AustLit gateway was a collaborative venture between eight universities and the National Library.

It is the first major research resource to utilise the new database information storage and retrieval model recommended by the International Federation of Library Associations.

AustLit's chief investigators from UQ are University Librarian Janine Schmidt and Vice-Chancellor Professor John Hay, who has had a long involvement in research into Australian literature. He is the general editor with John Arnold of the recently published The Bibliography of Australian Literature: Volume One (2001) and The List of Australian Writers (1995), the precursor to that work.

The UQ team working on AustLit includes Kerry Kilner, Joan Keating, Carol Hetherington and Irmtraud Peterson.

Kerry Kilner www.uq.edu.au/uqresearchers/researcher/kilnerk.html

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