Call for Submissions: IACRL 2023 People's Choice Award in Scholarly Publishing
January 17, 2023
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The Illinois Association of College & Research Libraries (IACRL) Awards Committee is seeking submissions for the People's Choice Award in Scholarly Publishing. This award will give academic and research librarians throughout Illinois the opportunity to read and evaluate scholarly works by their peers and then vote on a favorite. It will also present Illinois research and academic librarians with the opportunity to share their findings outside of a conference or other formal setting. IACRL welcomes submissions on all subjects relevant to Illinois academic and research libraries.
The criteria for submissions, along with the process for choosing winners, are below. The deadline for submitting a scholarly work is 5:00 PM Central Time on Friday, February 10. Please send your submission to Emily Gilbert, IACRL Awards Committee Chair, at emilygil@uic.edu. If possible, send a link to the scholarly work; otherwise, submit it as an attachment, preferably as a PDF or in Word. If the work does not already contain an abstract or summary, please include one in the e-mail (a paragraph would suffice).
Once the Awards Committee has received the submissions and confirmed that they meet the criteria, voting will take place via electronic ballot in February or March. Voting will last for 30 days. The Awards Committee will then announce the winners, and those individuals will have the opportunity to present their work in a special webinar or at a future meeting of the IACRL Journal Club.
If you have any questions, please contact Emily Gilbert at emilygil@uic.edu. Thank you very much.
Eligibility
- must be a current employee, full-time or part-time, of an Illinois academic or research library (all staff eligible, regardless of level of education, including whether or not individual possess a master's degree in library science)
- membership in ILA and IACRL not required, as long as affiliated with an Illinois academic or research library or organization
Rules for Submissions
- only one submission allowed per entrant
- publications for which one is a co-author (as opposed to a solo author) are acceptable, as long as the nominee played a substantial role in researching, writing, and revising the publication
- it is acceptable if the co-author(s) are not Illinois-based, or if they are in Illinois but work in a field other than librarianship, as long as the actual nominee meets the award criteria
- each submission must be a single scholarly work, not a series of publications or a full "body" of work (it is acceptable if the submission is a stand-alone work in a larger series or body of research, however)
- publication or other scholarly communication must have appeared between July 1, 2021 and December 31, 2022.
- no rules for word count (either minimum or maximum), as long as the submission meets the criteria
- publication may take the form of a book chapter, journal article, blog post, or other form of scholarly communication
- presentations at conferences, symposia, or other events are acceptable, as long as they take the form of a written report or overview, in addition to just an oral presentation or poster
- pre-publication work acceptable, as long as nominee plans to submit a final version for inclusion in a scholarly journal, monograph, blog, or other means of communication
Process and Criteria for Choosing Winners
- no limit on the number of entrants; if necessary, will limit number of choices on ballot, to make voting manageable
- voting open to all Illinois academic and research librarians (ballot distributed via IACRL listserv) and will last 30 days
- ballot will include links to scholarly publications, along with an abstract or summary for each one
- ballot will include the following specific criteria for voters to use when selecting the best submission:
- Organization and content of submission: (Is it divided into separate sections for the introduction, research question, methodology, results, conclusions, etc.? Do the initial question, the methods for data collection and analysis, and the findings demonstrate a thorough and accurate research process? Are any graphs, tables, or other visual representations clearly related to the information in the text? Does the abstract clearly summarize the main points?)
- Clarity of writing and relevance of sources (Is the information in the submission easy for someone unfamiliar with the topic to understand? Are any technical terms or concepts clearly explained, including in visual representations, as one would expect in a scholarly publication? Are the sources that are cited or listed professional works providing context for the research?)
- Relevance to Illinois libraries (Is this a study you could see recreating at your own library, at least on a certain scale? Could you apply the conclusions of the research to daily operations at your own library, such as improving an existing service or adding a new one? Is this a scholarly publication you would recommend to a colleague?)
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voters will select one submission; submissions with the three highest vote totals (including ties, if necessary) will be declared winners
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award will recognize at least three individuals, with first-place, second-place, and third-place recipients (ties for each place are acceptable)
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winners will have option of presenting their work in a webinar, or having their work be the focus of discussion at a meeting of the IACRL Journal Club
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