April 30, 2012

Student Book Collecting Contest winners announced

The Sheridan Libraries has announced the winners of this year’s Betty and Edgar Sweren Student Book Collecting Contest. The annual competition, which is sponsored by the Friends of the Libraries and was endowed in 2007 by longtime Friends Betty and Edgar Sweren, recognizes the love of books and the art of shaping a thoughtful and focused book collection.

The contest is open to all Johns Hopkins University students, and entrants must submit a bibliography of up to 50 items and an essay describing the collection. “Each fall we put out a request to all Hopkins students, inviting them to share their book collections with us,” said Winston Tabb, Sheridan Dean of University Libraries and Museums. “And each spring, without fail, we uncover the most extraordinary collections and some of the most fascinating people at the university. Congratulations to all our winners.”

In the undergraduate division, first place and the $1,000 cash prize went to senior Sandhira Wijayaratne, a double major in public health studies and sociology, for his collection Moralistic Humanitarianism and Africa. Second prize and $500 went to Audrey Swanenberg, a senior majoring in sociology, for The Green Thumb Collection: A Future Farmer’s Book Collection for Practical Knowledge.

There was a tie for first place in the graduate division, with Jennie Kay Hann and Kevin Baggot Roberts, both of the English Department, winning $1,000 each for their respective collections, Books About Books: A Meta-Collection and Cheap Thrills: Sex in American Publishing, 1924–1970. Hannah Joy Friedman, of the History of Art Department, won second place and $500 for Classic American ‘Funnies.’

Selections from the winning entries are on display on M-level of Homewood’s
Milton S. Eisenhower Library through July 1.