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Dartmouth Medal for excellence in reference awarded to “Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Law”

BOSTON– The winner of the 2016 Dartmouth Medal for most outstanding reference work, an annual award presented by the expert reference and collection development librarians of the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA), a division of ALA, is the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Law, Editor-in-chief: Brent Strawn, published by Oxford University Press.

Comprehensive, entries from scholars from all points on the religious spectrum include topics such as Marriage, Divorce, Testimony and Witness, and Gender. Extensive bibliographies and suggestions for further research make this a useful and balanced resource for library shelves. This work is part of the Oxford Encyclopedias of the Bible series, consisting of eight sets with essays by scholars from many countries and with a wide variety of perspectives.

Honorable mention is awarded to Worldmark Global Business and Economy Issues, published by Gale Cengage. This two-book set (V1: Business & Management; V2: Economy) helps the reader understand, contextualize, and analyze the issues and concepts surrounding international business and economics. This work is useful for anyone learning economic principles beyond their area of expertise.

The Dartmouth Medal, established in 1974, honors the creation of a reference source of outstanding quality and significance. The award is given to the best new reference source published in the previous year (more precisely, the previous December 1 to December 1, as the source needs to be available for a sufficient amount of time to be adequately reviewed). It is awarded to a new publication, not a new edition.

The Dartmouth committee, made up of reference subject experts from academic, public, and sometimes school and other libraries, receives nominations from librarians, editors, and publishers and spends countless hours reviewing copies throughout the latter half of the year.

The Dartmouth Medal selection committee includes: Nicolette Warisse Sosulski, Portage District Library, chair; Angela Courtney, Indiana University; Patricia Gregory, Saint Louis University; Kathleen Kern, National Defense University; Janet Pinkley, California State University, Channel Islands; and Dave Tyckoson, Fresno State University.

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RUSA announces 2015 book and media awards for adults

RUSA announced the top books in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and genre; audio books; and reference books for adults – including the Notable Books List, Reading List, Sophie Brody Medal, Listen List, Dartmouth Medal and Outstanding Reference Sources – at its Midwinter Meeting in Chicago.

A list of all the 2015 award winners follows:

Notable Books List for excellence in fiction, nonfiction and poetry:

Fiction

“All My Puny Sorrows” by Miriam Toews (McSweeneys)

“All the Light We Cannot  See” by Anthony Doerr (Scribner)

“The Bone Clocks: A Novel” by David Mitchell (Random House)

“The Children Act” by Ian McEwan (Nan A Talese)

“The Crane Wife” by Patrick Ness (Penguin)

“The Enchanted: A Novel” by Rene Denfeld (Harper)

“Narrow Road to the Deep North: A Novel” by Richard Flanagan (Alfred A. Knopf)

“On Such a Full Sea” by Chang-Rae Lee (Riverhead)

“Orfeo: A Novel” by Richard Powers (W.W. Norton)

“Something Rich and Strange: Selected Stories” by Ron Rash (Ecco)

“Station Eleven: A Novel” by Emily St. John Mandel (Alfred A. Knopf)

“Tigerman” by Nick Harkaway (Alfred A. Knopf)

Nonfiction

“The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution” by Jonathan Eig (W.W. Norton)

“Blood Royal: A True Tale of Crime and Detection in Medieval Paris” by Eric Jager (Little, Brown and Company)

“Dark Invasion: 1915 Germany’s Secret War and the Hunt for the First Terrorist Cell in America” by Howard Blum (Harper)

“Factory Man” by Beth Macy (Little, Brown and Company)

“In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeanette” by Hampton Sides (Doubleday)

“Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story” by Rick Bragg (Harper)

“Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption” by Bryan Stevenson (Spiegel & Grau)

“The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for James Joyce’s Ulysses” by Kevin Birmingham (Penguin Press)

“No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State” by Glenn Greenwald (Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt)

“Pandora’s DNA: Tracing the Breast Cancer Genes Through History, Science, and One Family Tree” by Lizzie Stark (Chicago Review Press)

“The Secret History of Wonder Woman” by Jill Lepore (Alfred A. Knopf)

“The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History” by Elizabeth Kolbert (Henry Holt)

Poetry

“The Blue Buick: New and Selected Poems” by B.H.Fairchild (W.W. Norton)

“Gabriel: A Poem”, by Edward Hirsch (Knopf)

For a complete list of 2015 winners and annotations, see the official announcement here. For a list of past winners and more information on the award and Notable Books Council, visit the Notable Books Award page.

Reading List for excellence in genre fiction:

Adrenaline

“Broken Monsters” by Lauren Beukes (Mulholland Books)

 Fantasy

“The Goblin Emperor” by Katherine Addison (Tor)

Historical Fiction

“Bitter Greens” by Kate Forsyth (Thomas Dunne)

Horror

“The Lesser Dead” by Christopher Buehlman (Penguin)

Mystery

“Murder at the Brightwell” by Ashley Weaver (Minotaur)

Romance

“A Bollywood Affair” by Sonali Dev (Kensington)

Science Fiction

“The Martian” by Andy Weir (Crown)

Women’s Fiction

“My Real Children” by Jo Walton (Tor)

For a complete list of annotations, shortlist titles and read alikes for the 2015 list, see the official announcement here. For a list of past winners and more information on the Reading List Council, visit the Reading List award page.

Sophie Brody Medal for excellence in Jewish Literature:

“A Replacement Life” by Boris Fishman (HarperCollins)

Honorable mentions include:
“The Mathematician’s Shiva” by Stuart Rojstaczer (Penguin)
“In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist” by Ruchama King Feuerman (New York Review of Books)

For a complete description of the 2015 award winner and honorable mentions, see the official announcement here. For a list of past winners and more information on the Sophie Brody Medal, visit the Sophie Brody Medal award page.

Listen List for outstanding audiobook narration:

“The Bees” by Laline Paull. Narrated by Orlagh Cassidy. Blackstone Audio/HarperAudio.

“Furious Cool: Richard Pryor and the World That Made Him” by David Henry & Joe Henry. Narrated by Dion Graham. Tantor Media.

“The Home Place” by Carrie La Seur. Narrated by Andrus Nichols. Blackstone Audio/HarperAudio.

“The Invention of Wings” by Sue Monk Kidd. Narrated by Jenna Lamia and Adepero Oduye. Penguin Audio/Recorded Books.

“Lord of Scoundrels” by Loretta Chase. Narrated by Kate Reading. Blackstone Audio.

“The Martian” by Andy Weir. Narrated by R.C. Bray. Podium Publishing.

“Moonraker” by Ian Fleming. Narrated by Bill Nighy. Blackstone Audio.

“The Moonstone” by Wilkie Collins.  Narrated by Ronald Pickup, Joe Marsh, Fenella Woolgar, Sam Dale, Jonathan Oliver, Jamie Parker, Sean Barrett, David Timson, John Foley and Benjamin Soames. Naxos AudioBooks.

“Queen of the Tearling,” by Erika Johansen. Narrated by Katherine Kellgren. Blackstone Audio.

“The Silkworm” by Robert Galbraith. Narrated by Robert Glenister. Blackstone Audio/Hachette Audio.

“Station Eleven” by Emily St. John Mandel. Narrated by Kirsten Potter. Books on Tape/Random House Audio.

“The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien. Narrated by Bryan Cranston. Brilliance Audio.

For a complete list of annotations and listen alikes for the 2015 winners, see the official announcement here. For a list of past winners and more information on the Listen List, visit the Listen List award page.

Dartmouth Medal for the most distinguished reference publication:

“Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism” published by Princeton University Press.

For a complete description of the award and 2015 winner, see the official announcement here. For a list of past winners and more information on the Dartmouth Medal award, visit the Dartmouth Medal award page.

Outstanding Reference Sources for excellence in reference:

“American Indians at Risk” Edited by Jeffrey Ian Ross (Greenwood)

“Black Stats: African Americans by the Numbers in the Twenty-First Century” by Monique W. Morris (The New Press)

“Bumblebees of North America” by Paul Williams, Robin Thorp, Leif Richardson and Shelia Colla (Princeton University Press)

“Consumer Healthcare” Edited by Brigham Narins (Gale Cengage Learning)

“Dictionary of Untranslatables: A Philosophical Lexicon” Edited by Barbara Cassin. Translation edited by Emily Apter, Jaques Lezra, and Michael Wood (Princeton University Press)

“Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice” Edited by Jay S. Albanese (Wiley Blackwell)

“Encyclopedia of Deception” Edited by Timothy R. Levine (Sage Publishing)

“Encyclopedia of Humor Studies” Edited by Salvatore Attardo (Sage Publishing)

“Encyclopedia of the Wars of The Early American Republic, 1783-1812” Edited by Spencer C Tucker (ABC-CLIO)

“Muhammad in History, Thought, and Culture: An Encyclopedia of the Prophet of God” Edited by Coeli Fitzpatrick and Adam Hani Walker (ABC-CLIO)

For more information about the award, see the official announcement here. For a complete list of past winners and more information on the award, visit the Outstanding Reference Sources award page.

Selected by judging committees of librarians and other readers’ advisory experts, the awards highlight outstanding works for adult readers and libraries nationwide.  For more information on RUSA’s Book and Media Awards, please visit www.ala.org/rusa/awards.

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Year’s best in books and media for adults unveiled at Midwinter

All ALA Midwinter Meeting attendees are invited to celebrate the announcements of adult literature’s next classics at the Reference and User Services Association’s (RUSA) upcoming Book and Media Awards Ceremony and Reception in Chicago.

This year the event will host special guest Margaret Hawkins, author of “Lydia’s Party” (Viking, 2013). The Chicago-based author has written two previous novels, “A Year of Cats and Dogs” and “How to Survive a Natural Disaster” and a memoir about her sister, “After Schizophrenia: The Story of My Sister’s Reawakening.” Hawkins wrote about art for many years for the Chicago Sun-Times and is currently a senior lecturer at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Following the ceremony Hawkins will be there to sign books. You can find more information about the author at www.margarethawkins.com.

Tradition continues with the announcements of the Listen List: Outstanding Audiobook Narration, Reading List and Notable Books List—lists that are selected and used by readers’ advisory librarians nationwide—as well as the winners of the Dartmouth Medal for a significant reference source, Sophie Brody Medal for excellence in Jewish literature, Outstanding Reference Sources and many more. Avid readers and book lovers alike are sure to expand their own To-Be-Read lists.

The reception will be held from 5 – 7 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 1 in the Williford Room of the Hilton in Chicago and will offer food and a cash bar. For those who cannot attend, information about the winners will be posted on the ALA homepage, RUSA blog and tweeted via @ala_rusa and #literarytastes. This event is made possible by our sponsor, NoveList, a division of EBSCO.

The winners announced at this event will shape the author lineup for the Literary Tastes event at ALA’s 2015 Annual Conference in San Francisco. Attendees at this free event will enjoy a light breakfast while listening to authors speak about the art and craft of writing. Immediately following the event, authors will be available for book signings. This event is free to all Annual Conference attendees; registration opens Jan. 12, 2015 at www.ala.org/annual.

 

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SAVE THE DATE! Midwinter Meeting attendees invited to celebrate RUSA’s book and media awards

All ALA Midwinter Meeting attendees are invited to celebrate the winners of our many adult reading awards — including the Notable Books, from which selections are chosen for the Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Non-Fiction; the Reading List, announcing the best in genre fiction; and the Listen List, announcing the best in audiobook narration — at RUSA’s Book and Media Awards ceremony and reception.

In addition to the Reading List and Notable Books selections — lists that are used by librarians and readers’ advisors nationwide — winners will also be announced for the Dartmouth Medal, Sophie Brody Medal, the Zora Neale Hurston award and other professional resource lists, including Outstanding Business Reference Sources, Best Reference Sources, Best Free Websites, Best Business Websites and Best Historic Materials.

The reception will be held from 5 – 6:30 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 26, in the Liberty Ballroom A at the Sheraton Philadelphia, 201 N. 17th St., and will offer food and a cash bar. Meeting attendees will find this event listed in the meeting program as the RUSA Book & Media Awards Ceremony and Reception. This event is made possible by the generous support of Novelist.

The literary winners announced at this event will shape the author line-up for the Literary Tastes author panel at ALA’s 2014 Annual Conference in Las Vegas. Attendees at this event will have the opportunity to listen to our favorite authors speak about their works and writing process. Authors will be available for book signings immediately following the event.

More information about the awards winners and the Literary Tastes event are available on the RUSA website and RUSA blog following the January event.

We hope to see you there!

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