The University of Queensland’s AustLit project has officially marked one million records.
The project aims to catalogue and celebrate Australia’s literary history, and the milestone makes AustLit the only national bibliography of its scale in the world.
Acting Director of AustLit, Catriona Mills said no other country had attempted such a comprehensive record of its literary, narrative and story-telling history.
“Since 2001, hundreds of researchers and indexers across Australia have worked to expand the database, based at the University of Queensland (UQ),” Dr Mills said.
“A nation’s identity lies in its story-telling, so every new work we add increases our understanding of Australia.”
The one millionth record is the novel Praiseworthy by Alexis Wright, an author from the Waanyi people of the southern Gulf of Carpentaria.
“Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writing has been at the heart of AustLit from the database’s inception,” Dr Mills said.
“Our most significant dataset, BlackWords, is a deep and wide record of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander publications, mapping stories through a time when writing emerged as a practice of cultural significance.”
Anna Johnston, from the UQ’s School of Communication and Arts, said the AustLit project was central to curating and building on Australia’s literary and cultural heritage.
“It records and makes available a rich archive of stories, from the first colonial poets to the latest contemporary novels. It also provides essential resources for teaching literature, from primary school to university level,” Professor Johnston said.
“UQ’s thriving undergraduate courses in Australian Literature contain the future teachers of our children and grandchildren, and AustLit is part of their training.”
AustLit can be accessed on this PS News link.
