The winners of the 2009 Betty and Edgar Sweren Student
Book Collecting Contest were
honored at a luncheon on Friday, April 24, at Homewood's
Milton S.
Eisenhower Library. The contest,
sponsored by the
Friends of the Johns Hopkins University Libraries, was
endowed in 2008 by longtime
supporters Betty and Edgar Sweren to recognize young
bibliophiles and encourage students to develop
their skills as thoughtful, focused collectors.
The Sweren Student Book Collecting Contest is open to
all undergraduate and graduate
students enrolled in a degree program at Johns Hopkins.
Participants must write an essay describing
how and why the collection was assembled and submit an
annotated bibliography of up to 50 titles.
Entrants also submit a wish list of up to 10 titles to
reflect future collection goals and areas of
interest. Cash prizes are awarded to six students in all,
honoring first place, second place and an
honorable mention in separate graduate and undergraduate
categories.
"The judges did not have an easy time deciding," said
Winston Tabb, the Sheridan Dean of
University Libraries and Museums and vice provost for the
arts. "We were all struck not only by the
depth of the collections but by the stories behind them.
Each year the bar gets raised a little higher,
and we have Betty and Edgar to thank for this wonderful
gift to the Hopkins community."
First place in the undergraduate category went to
Whiting School sophomore Shrivats Iyer for
his collection More Than Saffron and Incense: Modern
Indian and English Literature. Iyer is a
biomedical engineering major from Dubai.
The winner in the graduate category was Sarah
Richardson, a fourth-year graduate student in
human genetics at the School of Medicine, for her
collection Voices From Conflict: Oral Histories
from 20th-Century Wars. Richardson and Iyer each
received $1,000 for their winning entries.
Second place honors and $500 prizes went to senior
Emily Hoppe and second-year graduate
student Rachel Monroe. Hoppe, an English and
Italian major from
Cambridge, Mass., was recognized
for Italian Past and Present &mdaash; A Personal
Collection. Monroe, who is from Richmond, Va., is
pursuing her master of arts in fiction in the Krieger
School's Writing
Seminars and received the award for
Individual Orientalisms: Ways of Imagining the
East.
Honorable mentions and $250 cash prizes were awarded
to Krieger School senior Matthew Pines
and second-year graduate student Joanna Pearson. Pines, a
physics
and philosophy
major, was honored
for Mind and World: Where Philosophy and Physics
Meet. Pearson, a second-year master of fine arts
student in the
Writing Seminars' poetry program, received an honorable
mention for Contemporary
Poetry: A 20th- and 21st-Century Sampler.
In addition to the cash awards, winners receive a
one-year honorary membership in the Friends
of the Johns Hopkins Libraries. Since 1931, Friends of the
Johns Hopkins Libraries has furthered the
university's libraries' mission through lectures, programs
and the support of acquisitions and
technology.
GO TO