An exciting new era for research and discovery in Australian literature has dawned thanks to a collaborative research project led by The University of Queensland and University of New South Wales.
Eight of Australia’s leading universities and the National Library of Australia have joined forces to create AustLit: Australian Literature Gateway, a web-accessible database of information relating to more than 64,000 Australian authors and more than 390,000 works of creative and critical literature along with a developing body of readily available full text.
AustLit will be launched by the Federal Minister for Education, Science and Training, Dr Brendan Nelson, at the National Library in Canberra tomorrow (Tuesday, August 27) at 6pm.
“The group has created one of the world’s most comprehensive, efficient and user-friendly online research tools in what was one of the largest humanities projects ever funded in Australia,” said AustLit Executive Manager Kerry Kilner from UQ’s Australian Studies Centre.
AustLit (www.austlit.edu.au) will offer teachers, students, academics, historians and researchers a single entry-point to authoritative and constantly updated information about creative and critical works of Australian literature from 1780 to present.
Ms Kilner said AustLit would interface with Kinetica, the National Library’s bibliographic database, the Register of Australian Archives and Manuscripts, the University of Western Australia’s Guide to Australian Literary Manuscripts and the University of Sydney’s Scholarly Electronic Text and Image Service.
The national project was completed in partnership with Monash University, Deakin University, Flinders University and the universities of Sydney, Western Australia and Canberra, as well as the National Library of Australia.
“The collaboration between these institutions will be of lasting benefit to the field of Australian literature and cultural studies,” Ms Kilner said.
“It certainly makes sense to combine our resources and work collaboratively and the results are amazing. AustLit leads the way in information management and as a group we are extremely pleased with its outcome.”
AustLit Chief Investigators and Board of Management members included UQ’s Vice-Chancellor Professor John Hay, UQ Librarian Janine Schmidt and Professor Bruce Bennett from the University of New South Wales’ Australian Defence Force Academy college (UNSW@ADFA).
The Board of Management comprised numerous specialists in Australian literary research including John Arnold (Monash University), Ross Coleman (University of Sydney library), Professors Delys Bird and Dennis Haskell (University of Western Australia), Professor Belle Alderman (University of Canberra), Dr Wenche Ommundsen (Deakin University) and Professor Gus Worby (Flinders University).
The project was established in 2000 through a combination of funding from the Australian Research Council’s (ARC) Research Infrastructure scheme and partner cash and in-kind contributions between 2000 and 2002.
Media: For further information, contact Ms Kilner (mobile 0422 305 401, telephone 07 3365 3313, email: k.kilner@uq.edu.au) or Joanne van Zeeland at UQ Communications (telephone 07 3365 2619 or email: communications@uq.edu.au).
