Australian Poetry Library

by George Dance The Australian Poetry Library is an online archive of Australian poetry and poetry-related resources. It is a joint initiative of the University of Sydney (US) and Australia's Copyright Agency Limited (CAL), and is funded by a Linkage Grant from the Australian Research Council, as well as by US and CAL.

The Library began in 2004 with a prototype site developed by Australian poet John Tranter. It is currently maintained by a team of researchers from US, led by Tranger and Prof. Elizabeth Webby. As of the beginning of 2012, it contained roughly 42,000 poems by 170 Australian poets.

One aim of the Library is to help Australian poets, both by giving them a new, worldwide audience for their work, but to enable them to receive payment for use of their work still under copyright. A second aim is to encourage Australian teachers to use the country's poetry more in English courses. A third is to make Australian poetry more easily available to readers in remote regions.

The database of poems is fully searchable by poets or by poem. Poems can be read on the web for free, or downloaded and/or printed for a small fee (part of which is remitted to the poets by CAL). Teachers and students may also create their own anthologies of Australian poetry, on .pdf and (coming soon) via print on demand from University of Sydney Press.