Located on the second floor of Aderhold Hall, the Curriculum Materials Library (CML) serves faculty, staff, and aspiring educators. However, its reach extends beyond the Mary Frances Early College of Education.

Nan McMurry, a retired University of Georgia librarian and faculty member in UGA’s Department of History, has made it her goal to read all the children’s fiction picture books in the Curriculum Materials Library, a hobby she started in retirement to pursue a lifelong interest in children’s literature.

Over the last three years, going shelf by shelf, McMurry estimates having read between one-third and one-half of the children’s fiction picture books shelved in the CML.

“I never really grew up and graduated to adult literature, so I guess I chose the picture books because I was a little bit less familiar with that genre,” McMurry said. “I’d been collecting chapter books and young adult books all my life, and picture books maybe just for the last, say, 20 years, that I’ve been interested in, and so I thought that’s a great place to start.”

Origin stories

Making its debut in 1984 as the Curriculum Materials Center, the Curriculum Materials Library holds about 40,000 loanable items including books and instructional materials for grades preK-12.

“While children’s books and teaching resources are the most visible portions of the collection, we also offer unique items such as puppets, classroom manipulatives, imaginative play toys, and tabletop games,” said Jason Matherly, coordinator of the Curriculum Materials Library. “We also provide services such as request lending from other libraries, Ellison die cutting machines and other bulletin board resources, and a cheerful environment for study and groupwork.”

At UGA, McMurry worked in collection development in the Main Library and taught part-time in the history department. She remembers touring the CML upon joining UGA Libraries in 1988, four years after it opened. Although she worked with CML librarians and library assistants over the years, McMurry couldn’t dive into the collection herself until retiring in 2023.

She started her reading project with the Aaron Collection. Named for and endowed by Ira E. Aaron, professor emeritus in the College of Education and founder of the Reading Clinic, the collection consists of award-winning children’s and young adult books from Australia, Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand, and the United States.

Although she doesn’t have a favorite picture book from her CML reading journey, McMurry has added several of the books she’s read so far to a list to purchase for her own collection. A retired librarian herself, she praises the breadth of the library’s collection along with the CML staff and Matherly’s knowledge of children’s literature.

“I love the idea of having a library on site with a really good collection that is relevant to the people—the faculty and their research, and available to the students who are planning to become teachers—and to have that kind of collection and that very sort of comfortable and pleasant space to hang out in, and to have real expertise from the staff and the students,” McMurry said.

The feeling is mutual.

“I can think of very few things more idyllic than spending retirement working through every picture book in an education library!” Matherly said. “All too often children’s books are regarded as something to be left behind as we grow up, and, just on a personal level, seeing Nan every week is such a wonderful affirmation that that sentiment is for the birds.”