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Student Book Collectors - Contest Winners
Student book collectors have been competing at collecting books for many years at various colleges and universities. Nearly forty universities have book collecting contests.
The oldest contest is the A. Edward Newton Student Book Collection Competitions. It was started in the 1930s by a famous Philadelphia book collector and author, A. Edward Newton.  The top three Swarthmore students who submit the best essays and annotated bibliographies of their book collections are awarded cash prizes. The winners are also invited to display their collections in an exhibit in McCabe Library. Here are typical rules for the competition. These are for Swarthmore College competitions.
Student Book Collecting Contest GuidelinesThe contest, held annually, is open to all undergraduate students and prizes are awarded to the three best book collections as judged by the Newton Committee. - Books must be owned and have been collected by the student.
- Entries should include an annotated bibliography of at least twenty-five books and a one-page essay describing how, when, where and why the books were acquired.
- Each collection will be judged by the extent to which it represents a well-defined principle giving it unity and continuity. Annotations are expected to display the collector's understanding and knowledge of his or her books.
The top prize winner is eligible to participate in the
Fine Books & Collections Magazine's Collegiate Book Collecting Championship.
Nicolas Basbanes, author and book collector, is on the advisory board of the contest.
Here are lists of some of the past winners from Swarthmore College,University of Minnesota and Yale University:
Swarthmore
| Student Name | Contest Year | Book Collecting Topic | | Jake Brunkard | 2008 | Collecting the Underground: Black Sparrow Press | | Mark Kharas | 2008 | Quakerism: An Academic and Devotional Analysis of a Religion | | Trude Raizen | 2008 | Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend: Assorted Baseball Books | | Micaela Baranello | 2007 | Opera: History, Performance and Theory (and Humor) | | Bradford Taylor | 2007 | The Bird Watchers' Way of Life | | Mai Pucik | 2006 | Identity Crises (and the lack thereof) in Sequential Narrative | | Smita Ghosh | 2006 | Past and Future: A Collection of Bengali Literature | | Katherine Bridges | 2005 | Printmaking, Typography and Book Arts | | Liza Anderson | 2005 | Classic Texts of Christian Theology and Spirituality |
University of Minnesota
| Student Name | Contest Year | Book Collecting Topic | | Joan Gilmore | 2007 | The Furniture of Our Lives - Books on Antique and Miniature Decorative Arts | | Terrence J. Serres | 2007 | Understanding the Function of Trees: A Collection of Books on Trees and Forestry | | Caleb DeMarais | 2006 | A Collection of the Works of Japanese Novelist Kenzaburo Oe | | David K. Oosterhuis | 2005 | Beyond Tarzan: The Fantastic World of Edgar Rice Burroughs | | Eric Fuchs | 2004 | Collecting Books about Rhetoric and Debate | | David Oosterhuis | 2003 | Rome As Read: Recent Popular Novels Set in Ancient Rome | | Anne Good | 2002 | The Novels of Georgette Heyer | | Mike Westberg | 2001 | A Selection of Erle Stanley Gardner Books |
Yale University
| Student Name | Contest Year | Book Collecting Topic | | Alexa Garvoille | 2007 | Bilingual Beckett collection | | Temidayo Olopade | 2007 | Contemporary writing of the Black Atlantic | | Emily Kopley | 2006 | Virginia Woolf | | Mark Schneider | 2006 | Presidential autographed books | | David Gorin | 2004 | Contemporary American poets | | Xin Dong | 2003 | Buddhist scripture |
The above book collecting topics are only a few of the many categories that student book collectors have chosen. They show that there is a wide range of subjects to choose from when collecting books ... depending on your interests and goals.
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