The Library History Award
Annual Award for the best Essay on Library
History published in the British Isles
The Library History Award is an annual award for the best essay on
library history published in the British Isles. It is organised by the
Library History Group of the Library Association. The Award aims to
improve the quality and increase the quantity of writing on library
history in the British Isles. It is sponsored by the MCB University
Press and thanks to their generosity the award was made for the first
time in 1996.
Scope and Quality
Items considered for inclusion will normally come within the scope of
the Bibliography of British Library History. Normally the essay will
relate to a British Isles theme but high quality contributions on
foreign themes will be considered. The author should ordinarily be
resident in the British Isles but need not be a UK citizen.
Essays should embody original historical research on a significant
subject, should be based on original source materials if possible and
should use good composition and style. Essays showing evidence of
methodological and historiographical innovation will be particularly
welcome.
Method
The Award will be made for the best essay on library history published
in the United Kingdom within the previous calendar year (1999). Any
member of the Library Association may nominate a published essay for
consideration. The entries will be judged by a panel of four, viz.:
1) The Chairman of the Library History Group or his nominee who will act
as administrator
2) One other member of the Library History Group committee
3) An external assessor (not a member of the Library History Group
committee,
at the invitation of the Committee)
4) A representative of MCB University Press, normally the editor of
Library Review.
All members of the panel will be excluded from nomination. Members of
the panel may nominate candidates in the absence of other nominations.
Award
The value of the Award will be a cash prize of £200.
1999 winner
The entries in 1999 were all of a high quality but the judges felt that
Mark Purcell’s entry was the best. Mark Purcell was appointed Libraries
Adviser to the National Trust in September 1999, following on the
successful fund-raising campaign for country house libraries run by the
Royal Oak Foundation, the Trust's US support group. He was previously
Early Printed Books Librarian at Christ Church, Oxford, and has a
particular interest in libraries and collecting in seventeenth-and
eighteenth-century England. Although his essay was concerned with one
particular library he related the work and ideas of it owner to a much
wider world of scholarship and intellectual activity (‘Useful Weapons
for the Defence of that Cause’: Richard Allestree, John Fell and the
Foundation of the Allestree Library, The Library, vol. 21 (2))
Dissemination
The editor of Library Review will have the right to publish an abstract
or shortened version of the essay.
Nominations including 5 copies of the essay which should have been
published during 1999 should be sent, by 30th June 2000, to
Dr John C Crawford,
Library Research Officer,
Glasgow Caledonian University Library,
Cowcaddens Road,
Glasgow G4 OBA
Tel : 0141-331-3847
Fax : 0141-331-3005
Email : [log in to unmask]
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