Progressive Librarians Guild
PROGRESSIVE
LIBRARIANS GUILD
radical views on library & info issues

The Braverman Award | Submission

On the Miriam Braverman Memorial Prize

The Miriam Braverman Memorial Prize is awarded each year by the Progressive Librarians Guild for the best paper about some aspect of the social responsibilities of librarians, libraries, or librarianship. Papers related to archivists, archives, and archival work are also eligible.

The award honors Miriam Ruth Gutman Braverman (1920-2002), who was a socialist, writer, activist librarian, and longstanding member of the Progressive Librarians Guild, a founder of the ALA's Social Responsibilities Round Table, and a proponent of the social responsibilities perspective within Library and Information Science. The award is intended to celebrate Miriam's spirit of activism and faith in the power of people's collective social justice efforts and inspire future generations of librarians. The award has been given since 2003.

The winning paper will be published in a forthcoming issue of Progressive Librarian. The prize winner will also receive a $500 stipend to help offset the cost of travel to and from the American Library Association's (ALA) Annual Conference. The award will be presented at the annual PLG dinner at ALA, and the winner is invited to present their paper at the PLG meeting. In addition, the winner will be provided a press pass for the conference, allowing for free entry to sessions and the exhibition floor with the expectation they will write a short reflection for publication by PLG.

See the past Braverman Award winners and read their works.

Requirements

  1. Contestants must be Library and/or Information Science students attending a graduate-level program in the United States or Canada. Contestants may not have finished their coursework earlier than December 2022.
  2. Entries must be the original, unpublished work of the contestant, and must be written in English. Entries may not exceed 3,000 words, and must conform to MLA formatting and style.
  3. To facilitate the blind review process, each entry must include a cover sheet providing the contestant's name, full contact information (address, phone number, e-mail address), name of the institution where the contestant is enrolled and anticipated/actual graduation date, and the title of the paper. No identifying information, other than the title, should appear on the paper itself.
  4. Entries must be submitted electronically, in PDF format, to bravermansubmissions@gmail.com. Entries must be received no later than 5:00 p.m. CST on International Workers' Day, or May Day, May 1, 2023.
  5. The $500 stipend is available only to help defray the cost of ALA conference attendance in the winning year; if the winner of the contest is unable to attend, the money will remain in the Braverman Prize endowment fund and may be donated to an information and communication technology social justice-related NGO at the discretion of the selection committee.

Any questions regarding the contest or the selection process can be directed to the chairs of the selection committee, Julene Jones (julene.jones@uky.edu) and Amy Laub-Carroll (amy.laub@uky.edu).

Last updated: 19 January 2023