The ongoing examination of the nation as a suitable lens for analysing Australian literature has prompted a new exploration into the status of both canonical authors and texts and the means by which they attain such distinction. One avenue of inquiry involves studying the instruments of consecration, particularly archival material held at national institutions, that reflect and uphold the literary canon. In this project we substitute the nation for the network; visualising 20th century literary networks based on archival metadata harvested from Australian State and National libraries. Previous studies have touched upon the concept of literary networks, particularly in the context of publication and distribution of serialised fiction, but there has been limited examination of the interconnections between the various actors in the Australian literary field during the 20th century. By visualising these relationships through the size of each individual archive, or "archival extent," we aim to provide one representation of what can be considered Australia's consecrated literary network, thereby providing another vantage point from which to address the biases, omissions, and elisions in Australian Literary Studies.

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