Literature for Children is comprised of volumes from the Departments of Special Collections at several of the State University System of Florida libraries. It is a growing collection of digitized titles published, predominantly in the United States and Great Britain, from the 17th through the 20th centuries. The collection is of international significance for researchers who study historical, cultural, social and literary aspects of children's literature. More than half of the volumes collected here are unique among collections of children's literature elsewhere, whether in paper, microform, or digital format. The foundation for this Collection was a cataloging and preservation microfilming project funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The NEH project included a digital color management strategy for the reproduction of illustrations as children saw them.

Literature for Children Statistics:

Florida State University

The John Shaw Collection in the Department of Special Collections at the Florida State University's Strozier Library provides both the researcher and the archivist with essential information about the authors of children's materials and poetry. The Collections are noted for its correspondence with a number of individuals including authors and educators. Of particular interest, within the Shaw Childhood in Poetry Collection, is a collection of alphabet books. Alphabet books have both delighted and instructed children for centuries. As more books were created for the entertainment and edification of children, alphabet books were a natural favorite.

University of Florida

The Baldwin Library of Historical Children's Literature in the Department of Special Collections at the University of Florida's George A. Smathers Libraries contains more than 93,000 volumes published in Great Britain and the United States from the early 1700s through the 1990s. Its holdings of more than 800 early American imprints is the second largest such collection in the United States. The product of Ruth Baldwin's 40-year collection development efforts, this vast assemblage of literature printed primarily for children offers an equally vast territory of topics for the researcher to explore: education and upbringing, family and gender roles, civic values, racial, religious, and moral attitudes, literary style and format, and the arts of illustration and book design.
A great strength of the collection is the many English and American editions of the same work. Other strengths of the collection include 300 editions of Robinson Crusoe, 100 editions of Pilgrim's Progress, fables, juvenile biography, 19th century science and natural history, 19th century alphabet books, moral tales, fairy tales, 19th century juvenile periodicals, 19th century boys' adventure stories, 20th century boys' and girls' series, Little Golden Books, and juvenile publications of the American Sunday School Union and other tract societies.

The Baldwin Library is a key resource of the Center for the Study of Children's Literature and Media. The Center is an interdisciplinary center based in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Florida. Members of the Center include faculty and researchers from the university community; teachers, librarians, media specialists, and others working directly with children; and artists and writers creating works for children in print and other media. Its purpose is to encourage the exploration of this vital area of our cultural life through scholarly and critical investigations; through meetings, symposia, and seminars; and through the development of innovative ways to make the research and concerns of our members available to the general public.

University of South Florida

The University of South Florida maintains multiple collections of literature for children: historic and contemporary, for use in education and library science research as well as historical and social studies research. Collections of historical literature for children are held by the Department of Special Collections in the main library on the Tampa campus. Collections include boys, girls and animals series collections, chap books, early American textbooks, and pop-up book collections among others.

Collections of contemporary literature for children are held in the Juvenile Collection by the Nelson Poynter Memorial Library on the St. Petersburg campus. The Juvenile Collection exists to support the courses offered by the College of Education and to encourage adults to evaluate for themselves the appropriateness of Juvenile Collection materials for their individual children.