Judging Procedure & Criteria
Judges
The panel of judges shall include no more than five persons drawn from the ABAA, the Fellowship of Bibliographic Societies (FABS), and the Grolier Club and shall not have participated in any of the collegiate book-collecting contests held during the 2023-2024 academic year.
First Round Judges (FABS):
Sharon Gee
Jennifer Larson
Shannon Struble
Second Round Judges:
Nancy Boehm
Declan Kiely
Sheryl Jaeger
Olivia Loksing Moy
Judging Procedure
A three-person panel drawn from FABS will evaluate all entries and may request additional information from contests and/or contest sponsors. The top ten (10) entries will be sent to the judges for evaluation and final judging. Judges may contact contest officials and contestants for further information. Based on their review of the materials, a short list of candidates will be selected for interviews.
Judging Criteria
Judges will award prizes based on the intrinsic significance, innovation and interest of book collections as presented in entrants' descriptive essays and bibliographies. As part of the judging process evaluations will be made of the entrants' understanding of their collections' subjects, their use and citation of previously-published bibliographical materials, and their knowledge and appreciation of the items in their collections both for content and as objects of craft. The judges will also consider how collections may help preserve material that could otherwise be lost or forgotten, and the potential of collections to expand and evolve. Age, rarity and uniqueness of items will be assessed independently of monetary value.