A valuable collaboration

“I’ve walked past this window every day since I started at UC and never realised what was inside! This place is amazing. So many books – and all Australian!”

For three years now, we’ve been introducing UC students to NCACL as part of the ‘Children’s Literature’ unit offered by the Faculty of Education. The tour of the facilities and resources is always a highlight. For three years, these students have been responding with amazement and delight at the sheer number of books housed ‘down below,’ and many have been caught up in nostalgia upon spying their childhood favourites on the shelves.

We’ve always encouraged students to make use of the NCACL resources and databases to complete their final assessment – but last year, we took it up a notch. Upon discovering our focus was children’s literature written for, by and about First Nations peoples, the NCACL volunteers set about bringing all the relevant books – 600 of them – up into the main room, providing easy access to this collection for the students.

This was the game-changer!

Aided (and motivated) by the volunteers, who also opened the centre on additional days, many of the students took advantage of the opportunity to immerse themselves in this important sector of Australian children’s literature. I wish I’d been able to bottle the excitement and connection that resulted from this collaboration, not to mention the value and professional and personal gains achieved.

There was the student who found a long-loved book her mother had read to her over and over, and in which she saw herself.

There were students who returned to the NCACL multiple times, even after they’d sourced their books and completed their assessments, ‘because we just want to keep reading.’

And there was the student who, at the start of semester, confessed they’d ‘never been a reader’ and ‘preferred gaming,’ and who, by the end of semester, was excited about reading to and with their future students. This student was also one of the NCACL’s frequent repeat visitors.

Buoyed by the volunteers’ knowledge of Australian children’s literature and sheer passion for books, the students cited the benefits of the experience as ‘awareness,’ ‘deeper understanding,’ and ‘broadened perspectives,’ when it came to First Nations literature and ‘children’s books in general’. Beyond this, however, it was the excitement about ‘discovering’ the valuable resource that NCACL is, not just for English teachers but for teachers of all subjects, or for anyone who works with children. The realisation that children’s literature is so much more than short-form entertainment or something to be analysed in English lessons, that it permeates life, culture and society, bringing about understanding and belonging – that is the long-term value gained by these students.

At the end of the day, this experience was ‘just one assessment’ amongst many others. However, if these students hold true to their vow that they’ll be back whenever they can, working to incorporate Australian children’s literature into their assessments and future teaching in all curriculum areas – and I believe they will – NCACL will have played a key role in instigating a change in attitude and perspective.

Surely, this bodes well for future generations. How lucky are we to have this resource here at the University of Canberra and available, for free, to everyone, in every discipline, everywhere.

Kellie Nissen
2024 Convenor, Children’s Literature
Faculty of Education, University of Canberra

See other valuable collaborations that have occurred
A Permanent Home – NCACL
Partnering for Placements – NCACL
Sharing Favourite Stories – NCACL
A world-first… – NCACL

Posted by: NCACL | Published: 09 Mar 2025