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High
(book) marks for College collectors
What began
as a love of Indiana history has become a prize-winning book collection
for John Allread, '00. Along with Sherlina Nageer, '98, and Elda
Stanco, '98, Allread received the U of C Library's ninth annual
T. Kimball Brooker prize for undergraduate book collecting this
spring.
The College's
prize harks back to its creator, T. Kimball Brooker, AM'89, PhD'96,
who won a similar prize as an undergraduate at Yale University.
Over the past 28 years, Brooker has built a collection of 16th-century
French and Italian books and bindings, as well as a collection of
French literature.
The Brooker
Prize recognizes a second- and a fourth-year student in the College
(Nageer and Stanco share the fourth-year's prize this year). Students
submit descriptions of their collections, which are then judged
by a committee of University faculty and staff. The 1998 committee
included art historian Ingrid Rowland; English professor emeritus
Edward Rosenheim, AB'39, AM'46, PhD'53; Sem Sutter, AM'73, PhD'82,
AM'85, bibliographer of modern literature for the Library; classicist
Peter White; and Alice Schreyer, curator of the Library's Special
Collections Department.
Judges pay
special attention to how students' interests have directed their
collections. Collections range in focus; some look at a particular
subject matter, for example, while others form around the work of
a specific author. A collection's monetary value is not critical,
but-whether a collection focuses on a specific author or a particular
subject-all the items in a collection must illustrate its defining
principle.
The 1998 prizes
went to collections reflecting the collectors' cultural heritage.
Allread's collection, "Hoosier Notables: 1880-1930," includes works
by Indiana authors George Ade, Booth Tarkington, and Thomas R. Marshall.
Allread started his collection when his great-uncle gave him an
1888 book by Lew Wallace about the lives of General Benjamin Harrison,
the 23rd U.S. president, and the Hon. Oliver P. Morton, governor
of Indiana during the Civil War. From there, Allread accumulated
more books by "Hoosiers" living at the turn of the century-when,
he says, "Indiana had a great influence in the literary world."
Nageer's "Literature and Poetry from the Caribbean" collection contains
works by Karen McCarthy Brown, Alexandra Bandon, and Achy Obejas.
Elda Stanco's collection, "The New Latin American Narrative," includes
works by David Alizo, Elsa Morales, and Pablo Neruda.
With his prize
money, Allread attended the annual Printer's Row book fair in Chicago,
adding several more works by Tarkington and one more by Ade to his
collection. Allread figures he'll have his collection for a long
time, he says, adding that without the prize, it's not likely he
would have expanded it "to the degree that I'm planning on at the
moment."-Q.J.
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