Students who spent too much this Christmas could fill their wallets again by building their own book collections in a competition run by the University Library that has a top prize of £500.
Students who spent too much this Christmas could fill their wallets again by building their own book collections in a competition run by the University Library that has a top prize of £500.
The Rose Book-Collecting Prize was endowed in 2006 and is believed to be the first of its kind offered by any European university. As well as the £500 prize money, the winner will be offered 10 years’ free membership of the Friends of Cambridge University Library.
He or she will also be entered into the prestigious US-based Fine Books and Collections Magazine Book-Collecting Championship, which has a first prize of $2,500 presented at a prize-giving ceremony in the USA. This championship was won in 2007 by Cambridge’s first Rose Book-Collecting Prize winner, David Butterfield (Christ’s), with his collection ‘Landmarks of Classical scholarship’. David collected $2,500, an all-expenses-paid trip to Seattle, and $1,000 for the University Library.
The contest is open to all current undergraduate and graduate students of the University registered for a Cambridge degree. To enter, students should submit a list of their collection together with a short essay, explaining the theme and significance of the collection, by the first day of the Lent full term. Shortlisted candidates will be invited to talk about their collection to the judges.
The judges will make their decision based on the intelligence and originality of the collection, its coherence as a collection, as well as the thought, creativity and persistence demonstrated by the collector and the condition of the books. The value of the collections will not be a factor in determining the winning entry – a coherent collection of paperbacks is a perfectly valid entry.
Previous shortlisted entries include ‘Collecting the Gothic’, ‘Missionary travels in the South Seas’, ‘The handwritten record: manuscripts and annotated books’, and ‘German and Austrian travel and first hand experience in Asiatic dominions of the Ottoman Empire, 1871–1918’. In 2008, the prize was won by Daniel Hagon (Hughes Hall) for his collection ‘Primary sources in the history of mathematics and physics’.
The prize will be awarded in the Easter Term. It has been funded by Professor James Marrow and Dr Emily Rose in honour of Dr Rose’s parents, Daniel and Joanna Rose.
Professor Marrow said: “By establishing a prize through the UL, we want to stress and call attention to the importance of a great central library, which is the focus of the research activities of the university, and which serves a much wider range of purposes than the college libraries.
“Book collecting brings people together and we hope that a prize administered through the UL will help collectors from different colleges in Cambridge to meet one another and enjoy the company of an enlarged group of similarly-minded individuals.”
Book collecting prizes are fairly common in North American universities. Started by Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania, in the 1920s, these contests have encouraged generations of young collectors to become booksellers, librarians, and accomplished bibliophiles.
Full details of the Rose Book-Collecting Prize and how to enter are given on the UL website, follow the link on the top right side bar
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