The University libraries announced last week the creation of four new scholarships aimed at students who “demonstrate extraordinary skill and creativity in the application of library and information resources to original research and scholarship,” according to the University libraries’ Web site.
The libraries will allocate $3,000 for the awards — two $1,000 scholarships will be given as well as two $500 honorable mention awards. The scholarship money will be valid for the winners’ 2005 spring term tuition.
University librarians Deb Carver and Andrew Bonamici said the scholarships, formally called the Undergraduate Library Research Awards, are a step toward preserving and distributing exemplary undergraduate research that has extensively utilized the libraries’ collections, resources and services.
“I think what’s important about a good university education is that all undergraduate students have the opportunity to do research, whether it’s in the lab, in the library or out in the field,” Carver said.
“So much excellent student work never makes it past the grading,” said Bonamici, chair of the scholarship’s selection committee. “After the grades are in nobody reads it anymore.”
Undergraduate students create and complete noteworthy research every year, Bonamici said. Some projects “can be of such excellence that they should be preserved and get broader distribution.”
Carver and colleague Mark Watson said that winning projects will be placed in the University of Oregon Scholars’ Bank, which Carver described as an electronic bank for intellectual output. Watson said that the winning projects will be available to use as academic resources.
Besides placement of winning projects in the Scholars’ Bank, the relatively light amount of extra work needed to apply is the award’s other attraction.

“I know how busy students are,” Bonamici said. “We don’t want to create extra assignments for people.”
The research projects, which must have been assigned in 300 or 400 level UO classes during winter, spring or fall of 2004, are already done, or will be, by the end of this academic term. Students that utilized any of the University of Oregon libraries to create excellent research projects are encouraged to apply after discussing it with their professors, library representatives said.
“The scholarship committee is hoping to see “A plus-type projects,” Bonamici said.
The awards will be considered on a merit based evaluation, Carver said. The scholarship selection committee will not discriminate against research projects completed by individuals or teams, said Bonamici, but the $3,000 allocated will only be distributed amongst four winning projects. If a team wins an award, the $1,000 or $500 must be divided among the team.
Bonamici, Carver and Watson said part of the funding for this year’s award comes from money appropriated for two library freshman seminar classes. The rest of the support comes from leftover funds from a freshman seminar class taught by Vice President for Student Affairs Anne Leavitt.
Bonamici and Carver said they are excited about the libraries’ ability to self-fund the 2005 awards.
“I am confident that we will find support for this,” Bonamici said.
“We have it out there as one of our campaign priorities,” Carver said. “We are trying to raise one hundred thousand dollars.”
Carver said that the inaugural self-funding of the research awards was a strategy designed to make the Undergraduate Library Research Awards more marketable to future donors.
“We wanted to go ahead and do this because we’d have a demonstration. We’d have something to show to a donor,” Carver said.

Robert Fogarty is a freelance reporter for the Daily Emerald