Seven Stories - The Centre For Children's Books

Although the Visitor Centre provides the public face of Seven Stories, the Collection underpins all of our activities.

As our Memorandum of Association states, Seven Stories exists: 'To advance the education of the public... by preserving, maintaining and adding to a growing and accessible Collection... of modern British children's books, manuscripts, original artwork and related pre- and post- publication material and artefacts... which form part of the national heritage in an archive and library of present and future historical interest for the public benefit.' (2000).

We are in the process of building a nationally important collection documenting both the work of British writers, illustrators and editors for children since the 1930s and the creative process itself.

These guidelines are being prepared while the Collection is developed and catalogued. They are intended to help researchers of all kinds - from school children to experienced scholars - to use the Collection effectively by providing information about contents, accessibility, working in the Collection, and copyright. The information is updated regularly by researchers from Seven Stories and the Children's Literature Unit at Newcastle University who are working together under the Collaborative Doctoral Awards programme funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). In these early stages of the Collection's development, they are helping to create research pathways for others who want to locate and work with material in the Collection. One of these researchers has provided a personal account of what it is like to work in the Collection at this stage. This includes both a researcher's perspective and advice on working in archives including good practice, advice on data protection and copyright and ethical guidelines.