2025 Contest

Evaluate your collections over winter break, read over the guidelines below, and watch for the opportunity to enter the next Book Collecting Contest in January 2025.

2024 Awardees

• 1^st Place: Charlotte Nicholas - Books About a Homeland: A Collection Inspired by Hiraeth
• 2^nd Place: Marit Hendrickson - Frankenstein and Me
• Honorable Mention: Ailene Neal - Tolkiendil

Books and essays were on exhibit in the Greenfield Library Nutt Room until March 29, 2024. Thanks to all of our entrants, and congratulations to the awardees.

Guidelines

The Greenfield Library supports the love of books and the pleasure found in building focused collections and we want to provide an opportunity for the community to showcase their personal collections. To enter the contest, please read the guidelines below:

• Current students, faculty, and staff are eligible to enter the contest.
• Each contestant is limited to a single submission which should include 10 or more books.
• All items in the collection must be owned and collected by the contestant.
• Collections may contain hardbacks and paperbacks.
• Collections must be based on a unifying principle. Themes can be diverse encompassing many topics or can be broad or narrow.
  • Some thematic examples include: literature, history, signed books, books with elaborate bindings, science fiction, travel books, children’s books, illustrated books, or books published by a specific press. Any topic that shows a passion for book collecting is welcome.
• Collections do not need to consist of rare materials and will not be judged on dollar value or size.
• At least 5 books in the collection will be loaned to the library for the Book Collecting Contest exhibit.

View some sample entries:

• 2018 first-place entry: From the Pen to the Pen by Angel Pantoja
• 2022 first-place entry: Books about Words by Magnolia Vandiver

Questions:

Please email greenfield.library(at)sjc.edu for more information.