Rose Book Collecting Prize 2019

Entries are open for the 2019 Rose Book-Collecting Prize, which offers students the chance to win £500 by writing and talking about their own book collections.

The 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. 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.

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 Friday 25 January 2019. Shortlisted candidates will be invited to talk about their collection to a panel of distinguished 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 monetary value of the collections will not be a factor in determining the winning entry—a coherent collection of paperbacks is a perfectly valid entry.

In 2018, the prize was won by Nikita Makarchev of Magdalene College for his collection of books on 2×2=5: Protests and experiments in Revolution-era Russian poetry. His collection was also highly commended for the ABA national book collecting prize. Nikita will be curating an exhibition in the entrance hall of Cambridge University Library in March 2019 which will showcase some of his collection.

For full details of the Rose Book-Collecting Prize and how to enter, see http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/about-library/prizes-and-fellowships/rose-book-collecting-prize.