Op-Shopping for NCACL
By Margaret Robson Kett 

I vividly remember my first visit to the National Centre for Australian Children’s Literature, with my daughter Ms B. We enjoyed looking at the extensive collection of many editions of Australian classics, as well as the author and illustrator files full of delights – especially Ms B’s favourite, Bob Graham. The Centre’s beating heart and our tour guide, Belle Alderman, told us about the enthusiastic volunteers who collect items for NCACL. In 2023, I became one of them.

Pam Quick describes the role of the clipper in a previous blog entry – it’s an excellent introduction to this vital work which supplements NCACL’s holdings.

I live close to the centre of the City of Literature, within walking distance of at least a dozen fine public libraries. I spend my days reading and writing, immersed in my own created world of picture book scholarship @40_Years_of_Picturebooks. It’s been easy to add ‘clipping’ to this routine. Personal searching for long forgotten children’s books gives me a reason to visit my other favoured public space: the opportunity shop.

As any dedicated op-shopper knows, there’s an art to finding. Books are seldom in any discernible order. I easily skim over the highly coloured glossy bindings of the never-opened unwanted gifts crowding the shelves, looking for the shabby, well-loved paperback picture book I don’t yet know I need.

These titles often end up with other highly coloured, slim, paper items like magazines.  It was in such a stack that I found Deborah and Kilmeny Niland’s first illustrated book, ‘The Little Goat’ (1972, Lion).

The survival of a slender paperback from one century to another is a small miracle. Where had it been all this time? Thanks to NCACL’s online catalogue, I checked holdings on my phone: NCACL didn’t own it. Into the postpack of clippings, it went.

The business of children’s books has always included the production of secondary items known as ephemera. NCACL has many such items relating to May Gibbs’s characters Snugglepot and Cuddlepie. While hunting with Ms B for homewares for her first house in Perth, I found a placemat decorated with images of gumnut babies. Would NCACL like it? Into the clippings postpack, it went.

Many contemporary illustrators also create saleable artwork in the form of post and greeting cards.

Op shops acquire these items the same way they get books and placemats to sell – donated from people’s private collections (a.k.a. house clearances). The contents of desk drawers – stationery including cards – often end up in a shoebox next to the cash register.

Ms B and I were visiting an op shop of my childhood, looking for a preloved formal dress for her graduation. While she tried one on, I flicked through their box of cards. And there it was: a birthday card created by Bob Graham c1980.

[insert image of Bob Graham birthday card]

Should I add a zero to the card, as a special gift for a daughter’s upcoming birthday? Or gift it to a unique Australian children’s literature archive?

Into the postpack of clippings, it went.

 

Margaret Robson Kett is a former specialist children’s librarian who now writes about books fulltime (not just the ones she finds at op shops).

She divides her time between the unceded lands of the Kulin nation (Melbourne); Wadawarrung country (Ballarat); and Whadjuk Noongar Boodja (Perth).

Follow her on Facebook and Instagram @40_Years_of_Picturebooks

Posted by: NCACL | Published: 27 Nov 2025