EIU Booth Library

Awards for Excellence in Research & Creative Works

Award Description:

This program is designed to promote and celebrate excellence in student research and creative works. The competition is open to all undergraduate and graduate students in any major. Entries may be a research paper or thesis,  artistic work, exhibit, musical work, video, podcast, documentary, oral history, performance, data analysis or visualization, or other formats. As long as the student(s) used the library and its resources to complete the project, then it is eligible for the competition. Work submitted for competition must have been completed within the last 12 months.  

This award will be announced and paid in the spring semester. 

For questions or concerns, please contact: 

Anna Nelson, Booth Library Marketing Associate 

Phone: (217) 581-6064 

Email: alnelson5@eiu.edu 

If your work is not in written or digital form, for example a 3-D object or a board game, please contact Ms. Nelson to arrange for delivery. 

Entries must be submitted electronically no later than 11:59 p.m. CST March 7, 2025.  Recipients will be selected by March 31, 2025, and the winners will be honored during National Library Week on April 9, 2025. Work submitted for consideration must have been completed within the last 12 months.

Award recipients will be selected based on the following: 

• Use of library resources (25%): Review of the applicant’s explanation of the role that library spaces, materials, technologies, services and/or personnel played in the success of their project.
• Creativity/research (37.5%): Review of the applicant’s research methodology (the number of resources, primary sources vs. secondary sources, unique sources, creative use of the research to support their conclusion, etc.) or creative process.
• Overall excellence (37.5%): Review of the work overall. For research, considerations will include originality, clarity of argument/discussion, absence of errors, quality of citations, originality topic, clarity of conclusion, etc. For creative works and others: originality, technique, appropriateness of chosen format, organization, impact, etc.
  
  

A digital copy of award-winning entries will become part of the library’s institutional repository, The Keep. 

For additional details and guidelines on the awards competition, see the Awards for Excellence in Research & Creative Works Guidelines. All entries must be submitted electronically to the Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships. Use the Submit An Entry link below, then Sign In with your EIU username and password, as highlighted in the screenshot below. 

Submit An Entry