Guide to the Papers of Renee Erdos, 1884-1992

Summary

Collection number:

MS 5724

Extent:

1.26 metres and (9 boxes)

Language:

English

Preferred citation:

Items from this collection should be cited as '[Title or description of manuscript item], Papers of Renee Erdos, National Library of Australia, MS 5724, [series and/or file number]'.

Availability:

Available

Access conditions:

Available for reference. Not for loan.

Background

Content Summary:

The papers comprise addresses, reports on study tours, articles and publications written by Erdos; proceedings and other conference papers of the International Council for Correspondence Education; and research papers on correspondence and distance education in Australia and overseas, particularly in developing countries.

Biographical Note:

Renee Erdos was born in Ceylon in 1911, the only child of a Hungarian father and Portuguese/Australian mother. She was educated at Loreto Convent (Kirribilli, Sydney) and the University of Sydney where she graduated with a BA, Dip Ed in 1934. Erdos taught in various high schools in New South Wales and first became interested in distance education in 1944 when she agreed to prepare a 40 lesson correspondence course in modern history for the Sydney Technical College. She later became the head teacher in history in the NSW Department of Technical Education.

In 1959-1969 she was promoted to head of the School of External Studies. In 1961 Erdos was awarded a Smith/Mundt Fulbright grant to study external studies in the United States and Canada. In 1962 she received a British Council award and toured the United Kingdom, Scandinavia, Denmark, Holland, Germany, France, Russia, India, Thailand and Malaysia. In 1965-1969, Erdos was President of the International Council for Correspondence Education, chairing a conference of 156 delegates from 34 nations at UNESCO headquarters in Paris.

After her retirement from the Department of Technical Education, Erdos worked as an educator and education administrator for UNESCO in Botswana (1970-1972), for Swedish International Development Assistance in Tanzania (1972-1975), and for the Danish International Development Agency in Swaziland (1976-1979). She was the author of a number of books on adult education subjects and a biography, Teaching beyond the campus (1992). Erdos died in Sydney in 1997.

Bibliographic Reference(s)

• The Sydney Morning Herald. (Obituary, 1997).
• Teaching beyond the campus. (1992).

Provenance:

The papers were donated to the Library by Renee Erdos in 1978 and 1993.

Container List:

Series	File/Item	Box
1	1-6	1
1	7-8	2
2	1-5	2
2	6-12	3
2	13-20	4
2	21-26	5
3	1-6	6
3	7-12	7
3	13-18	8
4	1-3	9

Conditions Governing Access:

The collection is available for research.

Conditions Governing Use:

Copying and publishing of unpublished manuscript material is subject to copyright restrictions. For such material, written permission to publish must be obtained from the copyright holder(s). Copying of unpublished material for research purposes is permissible 50 years after the death of the creator of the material.

Preferred citation:

Items from this collection should be cited as '[Title or description of manuscript item], Papers of Renee Erdos, National Library of Australia, MS 5724, [series and/or file number]'.

Location of this collection:

National Library of Australia

Parkes Place

Canberra ACT 2600, Australia

Contact:

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