Australia’s largest literary database hits one million records

AustLit is one of the longest running digital humanities projects in Australia. Image: Andrew Yeo. The University of Queensland's AustLit project, to catalogue and celebrate Australia's literary history, this week officially marks one million records. The milestone makes AustLit the only national bibliography of its scale in the world. AustLit Acting Director Dr Catriona Mills said no other country had attempted such a comprehensive record of its literary, narrative and storytelling history. "Since 2001, hundreds of researchers and indexers across Australia have worked to expand the database, based at UQ," Dr Mills said. "A nation's identity lies in its storytelling, so every new work we add increases our understanding of Australia." The one millionth record is the novel Praiseworthy by Alexis Wright, an author from the Waanyi people of the southern Gulf of Carpentaria.