Reading Australia at NCACL

As a part of my fellowship with Reading Australia and the Copyright Agency, I am, quite literally, trying to READ Australia. In my project, titled “Everybody’s Story”, I am investigating character diversity in Reading Australia’s Picture Book Catalogue. Reading Australia is an organisation that aims to promote a love of Australian texts by developing freely accessible teaching resources. Reading Australia’s collection comprises novels, non-fiction and picture books. My project focuses solely on the picture books of Reading Australia, of which there are 123. My aim is to analyse the diversity of these texts in terms of culture, gender, age and ability. However, like all research plans, my grand designs fell away when it came to sourcing all 123 books.

I discovered early on in my research that the Reading Australia picture book collection had several older titles that were out of print and newer titles that had short print runs. This meant that sourcing these books was difficult. A chance meeting with Dr Belle Alderman at the CBCA Book of the Year Awards led me to the door of the NCACL. As a Canberran and a librarian, I had heard so many good things about the work of the NCACL, so I was very excited when Belle graciously invited me to visit, and told me that the NCACL is always open for visitors. Even better, Belle saw the list of books I had struggled to find and assured me that their collection could fill the gaps in my research.

It was a sunny Canberra day when I arrived at UC, and I was pleasantly surprised to find Belle, Rose and Ruth finalising the Midnight Gang

Exhibition in the UC Library.. They greeted me and told me I could be the first to see the exhibition. I was so ecstatic! After I had squealed my way through the exhibition, I was welcomed into the NCACL space. You know it’s a magical space when you walk in to see framed original artworks by superstars in the kids’ lit world (think ‘The Very Hungry Bear’). The shelves were packed with their Indigenous literature collection that showcases Indigenous authors and languages. While purusing this collection, I spoke to Ruth about my project. She reminded me of the NCACL Cultural Diversity Database and the NCACL Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Resource. I took the opportunity to look at these comprehensive resources while Belle collected the books I needed help to source.

As I analysed each of these books in turn, I was again struck by the power of picture books to share incredibly diverse viewpoints through thoughtful imagery and expertly selected language. From the incredible detail in ‘Do Not Go Around the Edges’ to the provoking messages in ‘One Tree’, I was reminded yet again that picture books truly are windows into others’ worlds and mirrors of our own. Yet the range of diverse books is often elusive to teachers, who, through semi-structured surveys, have reminded me that they struggle to find books that meet the needs of their diverse communities. Thank goodness for a place like the NCACL in this landscape, which can be the beacon directing teachers and teacher librarians to these books.

   

 

 

 

 

 

For the next stage of my research, I hope to further draw on the work of NCACL as I develop a collection of diverse texts and resources to support teachers in meeting the needs of their communities. And just as in the first stage of this project, I know I will be drawing on the knowledge and support that the NCACL provides to do this.

Biographical profile

Libby Baker is a teacher librarian, literacy consultant and researcher based in the ACT. She is the 2025 Reading Australia Fellow. Libby is a passionate literacy educator, having presented and published on functional grammar, multimodal texts and using a contextualised approach to literacy. Libby develops resources for educators on literacy teaching, which she publishes on her website: libbybakerliteracy.com

 

Posted by: NCACL | Published: 26 Aug 2026