The Applestein-Sweren Prize is funded by a generous endowment established by Betty Applestein Sweren '52 and Dr. Edgar Sweren in 2012. Prizes are awarded to Goucher students who present thoughtfully constructed personal collections of books and related ephemera. The competition encourages Goucher students to read for enjoyment and to develop personal libraries throughout their lives; to appreciate the special qualities of printed or illustrated works; and to read, research and preserve their collected works for pleasure and scholarship. Collections can be on any subject and this contest is open to all Goucher students.
We are not accepting applications at this time. Please check back for the next call for submissions. Any questions, please email library@vko29.com.
Three potential prizes are available annually to Goucher students:
1st Prize: $500
2nd Prize: $250
3rd Prize: $150
All prize winners will also be eligible for the $2,500 national prize awarded by the National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest, sponsored by the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America (ABAA), the Fellowship of American Bibliophilic Societies (FABS) and the Center for the Book and the Rare Books and Special Collections Division. See the National Collegiate Book Collecting webiste for more information.
Winners will be given the opportunity to curate a small exhibition of their collections in the Goucher College Library.
A collection consists of items that a student has come to own as a consequence of developing a particular interest, which may be academic or not. A collection should reflect a clearly defined unifying theme or interest. It may incorporate ephemera, maps, prints, autograph material as well as books, either hard cover or paperback, as long as they are germane to the collection's focus. All items of the collection must be in physical format. How well a collection reflects the collector's intent is more significant than either the number of items or the monetary value of the collection.
View examples of winning submissions (PDF) available in Goucher College's institutional repository, eScholarship@Goucher.
Applications for the prize must include the following:
Clearly stated purpose or unifying theme of the collection.
For any questions, email the Goucher College Library at library@vko29.com.
The judging panel will consist of members of the Goucher faculty, library staff, and members from the larger Goucher and Baltimore community with a passion for books and book collecting.
Co-winners
Anna Kulikova '24, Little by Little: My Journey of Self-Discovery
Maura Tyson '25, My Complicated Journey and Relationship with Reading
First Place
Reese Finnegan '25, My Father's House
Second Place
Joan Firestein '23, The Secrets to My Nancy Drew Collection
Third Place
Autumn Krist '23, Changing with the World
Honorable Mention
Kendra Medlin '26, On Course: Book to Basics
First Place
Emily Strickland '25, My Mother's Books: An Exploration of Heritage through Reading
Second Place
Sandra Howard, MA in Cultural Preservation '24, Dreamers in Harlem: Works Related to Harlem Renaissance Figures
Third Place
Uyen Nguyen '22, Losing, Finding, and Returning Home: Sense of Belonging
Honorable Mention
Reese Finnigan '25, Reese's Rock and Roll
Honorable Mention
Morgan Jackson '22, The Creative Lives of Bad Feminists
First Place
Uyen Nguyen '22, Indochina to Vietnam: A (re-telling) search for identity through narratives
Second Place
Elijah Brooks '20, Life and Art Indivisible; the Writing of Vladimir Nabokov
Co-Third Place
Alexis Fisher '20, Girls of String and Glue: A Collection of Female Experience
Co-Third Place
Sarah Wilson '20, You Are Home: Books and Music
Honorable Mention
Rosie David '20, Stories of Ordinary People Finding Magic
Honorable Mention
Kelly Holland '23, Fairy Tales and Folk Stories
Co-First Place
Ruut DeMeo '20, The Kalevala: Retellings and Interpretations of the Ancient Myth
Co-First Place
Matthew Jenkins '21, J.R.R. Tolkien: A Beaten, Battered, and Yellowed Bundle of Pages
Co-Second Place
Joshua Miller ‘20, Shades of the Color Black: Perspectives of the Black Identity
Co-Second Place
Lena Fultz ’19, The Value of a True Story: Memoir as a Writer’s Primary Source
Honorable Mention
Abigail Mahoney-Cloutier ’22, High Fantasy in Ink
First Place
Rose Berman, Post-Baccalaureate Premedical Program '17, Antoine de Saint Exupéry: Pilot, Author, Friend
Second Place
Jackson Gilman-Forlini, MA in Historic Preservation '18, Histories of Baltimore: How did we get here?
Honorable Mention
Htet Htet Aye Win '19, Stories from Yesterday: A Collection of Myths, Legends, Fairytales,
and Folktales
First Place
Micaela Beigel '19, Once We Were Dreamers: A Collection of Jewish Resistance During the Holocaust
Honorable Mention
Julianna Head '19, Adventures with Animals: Through Emotional Landscapes and Actual
Ones
Co-First Place
Laura Williams '17, Collecting the Adoption Story, One Page at a Time
Co-First Place
Hannah Fenster '15, 'A Thousand Other Hearts': Women Who Guide Me
Second Place
Michelle Tirto '15, Perspectives of the City
Third Place
Emily K. Collins '15, 'Home Maker': What it Was to be a Woman in Late Victorian America
First Place
Jacqueline Cast '14, Mind and Iron: A Collection Inspired by Isaac Asimov's Positronic Robots
Second Place
Shayna Meisel '16, Collecting Heroines
Third Place
Miranda Harmon '14, Comics, Anthologies and Zines
Honorable Mention
Emily K. Collins '15, And Baby Makes...?: Reproduction (or Lack Thereof) in the Mid
to Late 19th Century
Co-First Place
Lily Dodge '12, A Portal to Middle Earth: The Dodge Collection of Tolkien Books & Ephemera
Co-First Place
Camden Kimura '12, I Know That Town: To Kill A Mockingbird
Second Place
Cynthia Ferguson '14, Strange Things Afoot: Gothic Literature in the American Tradition
Honorable mention
JoAnna Ramsey '16, The Movies, the Magic and Me