This award is being jointly presented by the Beta Phi Mu International Honor Society (http://beta-phi-mu.org/) and the American Library Associationa’s Library Research Round Table (http://www.ala.org/lrrt/) to recognize excellent research in progress into problems related to the profession of librarianship. Any ALA member is eligible for this $500 award, and all methodologies and research topics/questions are eligible for consideration.
The criteria to be followed for the selection of an award winner are:
- Importance of the research question or problem (20 points)
- Adequacy of the review of relevant literature (10 points)
- Appropriateness of the methodology used (10 points)
- Effectiveness of the application of the methodology (20 points)
- Addition of the findings to the knowledge and/or praxis in the field of librarianship (20 points)
- Articulation of the conclusions emanating from the study (10 points)
- Clarity and completeness (10 points)
The deadline for submission is January 31, 2017. Submissions must not have been published prior to January 31, 2017. The submissions will be limited to a 2,000-word abstract, excluding the bibliography or reference list, and should be emailed to the contact person below. Please include a title page with title of proposal and author contact information including name, institutional affiliation, mailing address and email address. Individuals may submit only one paper. Jointly authored proposals are acceptable, but all authors must be ALA members, and will split the award of $500.
All submissions that meet the deadline and the criteria will be considered. The proposals will undergo a blind-review process by a joint BPM/LRRT award committee.
The award will be presented during one of LRRT’s research programs at the ALA Annual Conference, Chicago, IL: June 22-27, 2017.
Email submissions by January 31, 2017 to:
Susan Rathbun-Grubb, Award Committee Chair – srathbun@mailbox.sc.edu
Susan Rathbun-Grubb, MSLS, PhD
Assistant Professor
School of Library and Information Science
University of South Carolina
1501 Greene St.
Columbia, SC 29208
803.777.0485
srathbun@mailbox.sc.edu