PUL announces 2020 Adler Book Collecting Prize winners

 Tanishk (Tan) Shanker (left), Mikaylah Ladue (middle), and Kaveh Badrei (right)

From left to right: Tanishk (Tan) Shanker '20, Mikaylah Ladue '20, and Kaveh Badrei '20.


 

Congratulations to Tanishk (Tan) Shanker '20, Mikaylah Ladue '20, and Kaveh Badrei '20!

Written by Minjie Chen, Metadata Librarian, Non-Roman Collections, Cotsen Children's Library

The Judging Committee of the 2019-2020 Elmer Adler Undergraduate Book Collecting Prize is pleased to announce this year’s winners. We are departing from our tradition of publicizing the result of the annual essay contest over a large group event, where student winners join the Friends of the Princeton University Library at its spring dinner meeting. The gathering, originally scheduled for April 19, was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and Princeton students have been sent home and dispersed around the world. As chair of the Judging Committee, I (Minjie Chen) used to prepare for the ceremony by finding colleagues who could teach me how to pronounce winners’ names. This year I am spared this little routine as well because the announcement will appear in writing only.

The 2019-2020 Adler Prize is awarded to three student collectors who, in the opinion of the judges, have “shown the most thought and ingenuity in assembling a thematically coherent collection of books, manuscripts, or other material normally collected by libraries.” Thanks to the generosity of the Princeton University Press, the Judging Committee has selected books to be presented as part of the prize. They are sitting in the Firestone Library and waiting until it reopens to be shipped to students. Each of the winners will also receive a certificate from the Dean of the College.

Instead of the group photo of the winners we planned to take and post here, we asked students to share their photos with us, and they responded with both words and pictures. I heard from one of the students, Tan Shanker, that he had had the harrowing experience of testing positive for COVID-19 but, to my great relief, fully recovered. The extraordinary story of his abundant vigilance and steely self-discipline in breaking the chain of infection even made it to the Gulf News.

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