Enriching the ways that students think about research and sharpening their skills to carry it out are major objectives of The Library. The Library Prize for Undergraduate Research recognizes excellence in undergraduate research projects that draw upon University Library collections and demonstrate use of sophisticated information literacy and research skills. Judges consider the product of the research, but focus on the research process: demonstration of library research skills, adept use of library resources, and reflection on the strategies used to investigate a research problem.
Along with a research paper written for a course and the instructor's letter of support, the premiere component of the Library Prize application is a research essay in which students describe the research process that enabled them to locate the materials that informed their thinking. This essay provides insights into the undergraduate research process by requiring students to reflect upon their discovery process—gathering, evaluating, and synthesizing information. Many essays include revealing statements about personal setbacks and challenges, false starts, muddled thinking, desperate measures, and despair—all shared student experiences.
The faculty who serve as judges for the Prize find the experience rewarding: "I learned a great deal from reading the Library Prize submissions in 2004, not the least of which was that we have the privilege to work with enormously talented students, especially when we encourage them to dig deeper." "The enthusiasm exhibited in the students' reflective essays was infectious. Reading the entries felt like a journey not only into the mind of a particular student but into the various library collections as well."
Recent winners of the Library Prize come from many different departments—History, Music, Classics, Architecture, History of Art, and Molecular and Cell Biology—reminding us that library research is not just the domain of certain disciplines. And their research projects are sophisticated: the instructor who oversaw Gary Ku's "The People and Purpose of Trajan's Markets" says that the paper "sheds new light on the field." For his project "Macario Sakay and the Struggle for Kalayaan: Continuity in the Katipuana Guerilla Movement, 1892-1907," Joseph Scalice consulted manuscript collections in the Bancroft Library: "No scholars have ever consulted the Barrows Papers for information on Sakay, and Joseph has made some striking discoveries," says his instructor.
More information on the Library Prize for Undergraduate Research can be found online.