If you have never visited the MSU Student Book Collection Competition reception, held every Spring semester, you have missed a fascinating look at the wide variety of book collectors who attend Michigan State University.   Open to MSU students (graduate students and undergraduate students), the competition gives students a chance to share their enthusiasm for something we in the Libraries also treasure: the book.  The competition carries a monetary prize, sponsored by the MSU Friends of the Libraries.  Many of the entrants, not surprisingly, state that they intend to use any winnings to buy more books.  For information on entering this year's competition, go to <http://www.lib.msu.edu/events/contest.html>. The MSU Student Book Collection Competition reception, at which you can see the collections of this year's winners and finalists displayed, will be held in April 2005.  You can see the essays and annotated bibliographies for previous winners and finalists by clicking on the links below.

Some of the collections submitted to the competition are enormous, and some are quite small.  The topics cover the spectrum--history, literature, art, science, religion, regions and cultures, genre literature, leisure activities, children's books, and personal experiences.  Even collections that sound like they would be similar are very different in focus and intent.

The diversity in winning collections in the years the contest has been held will give you an idea of the variety of interests expressed by collectors.  The 2000 winner, Barry Stiefel, has a Judaica book collection, begun when he received a couple of books on Judaism and Jewish history for his bar Mitzvah.  Those books remained gathering dust until he wrote a paper on the Jews of Asia for a class.  After writing the research paper, his interest in Jewish history took off, and he collected many more titles, many obtained on his travels to Europe and the Middle East.  Today, his collection includes book on Jewish religion, art, literature, history, culture, folklore, (auto)biographies, and cooking.

The 1999 contest winner, Raymond Garcia, collects hard-boiled and noir detective literature.  Erudite about the literature, he puts his finger on the appeal of this literature to many: "the affirmation that in the omnipresent world of corruption, economic inequality, crime, violence, mendacity, and seedy urban decay, the power to go on and stick to one's principles remains possible."   His search for these books has led him to open and maintain an online bookstore specializing in this genre.  (See <http://www.abebooks.com/home/hbnbooks/>.)

Tami Michele, the winner of the 1998 contest, began her collection on drug-free childbirth when she was expecting her own child.  What she learned inspired her to become a certified childbirth educator for the Bradley Method, so that she could share with other couples the joy of natural birth.  Traveling to conferences allowed her to meet many of the authors of the books in her collection, and continued to inspire her interest in birth.  Her pursuit of the knowledge gained from her initial collection has led to her current enrollment as a medical student at MSU's College of Osteopathic Medicine, where she plans to go into Obstetrics and Women's Health Care.

The MSU Student Book Collection Competition offers students an opportunity  to share their enthusiasm for books and their personal interests with others.  All topics and genres are welcome.  Participants submit a short essay describing the focus and contents of their collection, and an annotated bibliography of its contents or a selection of 50 titles from larger collections.

Finalists display their collections in the Main Library for final judging, followed by a reception.   The first place collection will be awarded a $500 prize, and the second place collection will be awarded $250.  All other finalists will receive a $100 award.