Third National Book Collecting Contest, 2011/2012

The National Book-Collecting Contest was created by the Bibliographical Society of Canada (BSC) in 2008 to encourage young Canadians to collect books and study the discipline of researching and writing bibliographies. Our partners the W.A. Deacon Literary Foundation (DLF), and the Alcuin Society are all passionate about reading, collecting, and studying book history.

Prizes

First Place: $1,000
Second Place: $500
Third Place:  $250

The prizes will consist of money and gifts from our partners and co-sponsors. There will be three prizes including first, second and third place. A one year  membership subscription to the BSC and its papers will be part of the prize(s).

Requirement for Entry

The Contest is open to all Canadian residents under thirty years of age as of the deadline date for submissions.

The collection must be owned and collected by the contestant.

Entries will not be returned and become the property of the Bibliographical Society of Canada. Entrants agree to allow the BSC and its partners and sponsors, to publish their essay in full or in part, in print or electronic form in a future issue of the BSC ‘Papers’ and ‘Website’.

Entries must be postmarked no later than 5 March 2012.

Entries should be emailed or mailed via Canada Post to:

bookcontest@bsc-sbc.ca

The Bibliographical Society of Canada
P.O. Box 575, Postal Station P
Toronto, ON
M5S 2T1

Winners will be notified by 12 May 2012.

The winners’ names will be publicly announced and prizes awarded at the 2012 Annual General Meeting of the BSC. The winning essay and possibly photographs of the collection will be posted on the BSC website.

A sampling of the winners’ collections may be exhibited in a display case at the BSC annual conference and possibly at another location(s) with our partners.

The required submission materials

Cover sheet:

Name
Proof of Age
Street address
Telephone number
Email address
Collection title

Additional contact information for the month of May 2012 should be provided if the entrant will be away during this time.

The Essay

The contest requires participants to write a 1,500 to 2,000-word essay on their collection, including where appropriate, the description of the books: binding, cover decoration, illustrations, and bibliographical features such as format, printing, and publication data. Example collections include children’s books, illustrated books, artists books, flip books, Arthurian legend, Generation X, eighteenth and nineteenth-century literature, serial fiction, graphic novels, a single author, cookbooks, modern authors, travel, experimental poetry, little magazines, etc…The essay may be written in French or English.

Past winning essays: The Works (and Quirks) of Alexandre Dumas pere; The L.M. Montgomery Collection in the Forest City; The Complexities of Ordinary Life: Autobiographical Comics and Graphic Novels; A History of Fish; The Tudors & Stuarts; Superlative Works From the Subcontinent.

The List

The list of books must be organized according to some logical principle: most probably, by author or by subject. Each book listed should include at least the following information: author, title, date, place, publisher, format (e.g. hardback or paper), and an indication of condition.

Full Contest Rules will be located on the BSC and our our partners’ websites.

These Rules are subject to change.

Judging

The Jury is comprised of senior bilingual BSC, DLF, Alcuin Society, and a possible outside guest. The panel of judges will include no more than five persons.

Judging Criteria

The criteria for judging collections include the focus of the collection, method of collecting, progress made in creating the collection, and the quality of the explanation of the collections focus. Where appropriate, the quality of the description of the books, that is, of the physical characteristics such as binding, publication details, are taken into consideration. Collections will not be judged on dollar value or size.

Suggested reading that may prove useful in answering questions about book collecting:

Carter, John. ABC for Book Collectors. (revised by Nicolas Barker).
Peters, J., (editor). Book Collecting: A Modern Guide. NY: R.R. Bowker (1977)
Peters, J., (editor). Collectible Books: Some New Paths. NY: R.R. Bowker (1979)
Bowers, Fredson. Principles of Bibliographical Description. Oak Knoll (1994)
Tanselle, G. Thomas. Selected Studies in Bibliography. U. of Virginia (1979)
Catalogage des monographies anciennes : Z 44-074 Documentation : Rédaction de la notice bibliographique. Paris, AFNOR, Octobre 1986.
Kirsop, Wallace. Bibliographie matérielle et critique textuelle, vers une collaboration, Lettres modernes, 1970.
Laufer. Roger. Introduction à la textologie. Vérification, établissement, édition des textes, Paris, Larousse, 1972.
Malcles, Louise-Noelle. Notions fondamentales de bibliographie. [Paris: Bibliothèque nationale], 1955.
Veyrin-Forrer, Jeanne. Précis de bibliologie. I Fabrication manuelle, Paris, ENSB, 1971.