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Looking for YA lit in the Elysian Fields.

Article Excerpt
The Kerlan. A name invoked in hushed tones by devotees of children's literature. A sort of heaven where manuscripts of the books we love go to be preserved forever. A collection of 100,000 books, as well as 16,000 files of holographs, typescripts, page proofs, artwork, editorial letters, and other assorted contents of authors' office closets. Official title: The Kerlan Collection of Children's Literature, part of the Children's Literature Research Collections at the University of Minnesota.

Okay, but what's in it for young adult literature advocates? How much of this mighty collection relates to books for teens, and what can researchers in that genre discover there? Checking out the website (http://special.lib.umn.edu/clrc/) and perusing the online catalog, I find that, although the collection's declared focus is children's literature, a number of familiar YA writers appear to be represented. I spot some omissions (Avi, Joan Bauer, Virginia Euwer Wolff), and when I use the "Finding Aids" to check the contents of individual author files, I discover that some writers I think of as YA (Richard Peck, Jane Yolen) have donated mostly their children's titles to the Kerlan. Still, there is enough enticing young adult material in the online catalog to motivate me to book an investigative flight to Minneapolis and plan a visit with the help of the collection's curator, Karen Hoyle.

The campus of the University of Minnesota is huge. There are miles of square red-brick buildings, the Mississippi River, and one utterly outrageous metal-clad building designed by Frank Gehry. Finding the Kerlan's offices in the Andersen Library, I am welcomed warmly into the large, well-lighted workroom by curator Hoyle, who emerges from among the...

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