Audio version

Page 12 • Cognotes 2012 Midwinter Meeting HIGHLIGHTS—Dallas

RUSA Awards

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Listen List
for outstanding audiobook narration

All Clear by Connie Willis. Narrated by Katherine Kellgren (Brilliance Audio)
Bossypants by Tina Fey. Narrated by Tina Fey (Hachette Audio. Audio-GO)
The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey by Walter Mosley. Narrated by Dominic Hoffman (Penguin Audio. Books on Tape)
Life Itself: A Memoir by Roger Eb-ert. Narrated by Edward Herrmann. (Hachette Audio. AudioGO)
Middlemarch by George Eliot. Narrated by Juliet Stevenson. (NAXOS)
The Mischief of the Mistletoe by Lauren Willig. Narrated by Kate Reading. (Penguin Audio)
One of Our Thursdays is Missing by Jasper Fforde. Narrated by Emily Gray. (Recorded Books)
A Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley. Narrated by Jayne Entwistle. (Random House Audio. Books On Tape)
The Snowman by Jo Nesbø. Narrated by Robin Sachs. (Random House Audio. Books On Tape)
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. Narrated by Simon Prebble. (Blackstone Audio)
The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht. Narrated by Susan Duerden and Robin Sachs. (Random House Audio. Books On Tape)
Why Read Moby-Dick? by Nathaniel Philbrick. Narrated by Nathaniel Philbrick. (Penguin Audio. Books on Tape)

Sophie Brody Medal
for outstanding achievement in Jewish Literature

Sacred Trash: the Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza by Adina Hoffman and Peter Cole (Schocken Books) recounts the discovery and retrieval of worn-out Jewish documents from the Cairo Geniza. In this religiously-mandated repository, medieval documents were found that render a fascinating view of a 900-year span of a vibrant Mediterranean Jewish culture by examining not only sacred texts, but also wills, contracts, letters and other everyday documents.

Honor Books: Jerusalem: the Biography by Simon Sebag Montefiore (Alfred A. Knopf)

MetaMaus by Art Spiegelman (Pantheon Books)

Quiet Americans: Stories by Erika Dreifus (Last Light Studio Books)

Dartmouth Medal
for the most outstanding reference work of the year

Winner: Green's Dictionary of Slang (Chambers)

The dictionary was selected for its comprehensive and inclusive scholarship for slang in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia, and other English speaking countries. This source covers 500 years of slang usage with 110,000 words and phrases, over 400,000 citations, and 6,000 titles as sources. Scholars of language and history, as well as creative writers, and a wide range of curious readers will enjoy this dictionary for many years.

Honorable Mention: International Encyclopedia of Political Science (Sage Reference in association with the International Political Science Association)

The Dartmouth Medal Committee presents a Lifetime Achievement Award to the Statistical Abstract of the United States (United States Department of Commerce) which, for the last 133 years, has been one of the premier reference sources. It is the recognized authority for U.S. statistics and serves as an entrée into government documents. It went electronic early, in 1993, and continues to be viable in print. The legacy of the Statistical Abstract will continue as it provides an in-depth snapshot of American life.

Outstanding Reference Sources
for the most noteworthy reference titles of the year

The Encyclopedia of Political Science George T Kurian editor-in-chief (CQ Press)
The Civil War Naval Encyclopedia edited by Spencer Tucker (ABC-CLIO)
Competing Voices from the Russian Revolution: Fighting Words edited by Michael Hickey (Greenwood)
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Books of the Bible edited by Michael D. Coogan (Oxford University Press)
Concise Encyclopedia of Amish, Brethren, Hutterites, and Mennonites by Donald B. Kraybill, (The Johns Hopkins University Press)
The Polish American Encyclopedia, edited by James S. Pula (McFarland & Company, Inc.)
Green's Dictionary of Slang by Jonathan Green (Oxford University Press)
Encyclopedia of Sports Medicine, edited by Lyle J. Micheli (Sage Publications)
The Encyclopedia of Literary and Cultural Theory, Michael Ryan, general editor (Wiley-Blackwell)
The Homer Encyclopedia, edited by Margalit Finkelberg (Wiley-Blackwell)
The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art, edited by Joan D. Marter (Oxford University Press)

Sarah L. Johnson Wins RUSA's Prestigious Louis Shores Award for Book Reviewing

Sarah L. Johnson, professor of library services at Eastern Illinois University and author of the blog Reading the Past, is the 2012 winner of the Louis Shores Award, an annual honor presented by the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) to recognize excellence in book reviewing.

In selecting Johnson for this honor, the committee praised her book reviews, blog and social media postings, readers' advisory books and review columns, that all serve as valuable tools for both readers and readers' advisors. "The award committee was impressed with both the breadth and the depth of Johnson's work," said Barry Trott, award committee chair. "Her individual reviews reflect a keen insight into the title and an ability to communicate in a clear and thoughtful way the appeal of the title under consideration. Johnson is also to be commended for her use of a variety of tools – print and electronic – to reach out to readers as well asprovide a model for other reviewers in a rapidly changing publishing world."

Johnson serves as Book Review Editor, The Historical Novels Review, and her reviews and have appeared in, among other publications, Booklist, NoveList, Bookmarks Magazine and The Toronto Globe and Mail. She is also the author of Historical Fiction: A Guide to the Genre and Historical Fiction II, which reviewers have called "an outstanding readers' advisory reference work" and "an excellent and detailed reference tool." In addition to her outstanding reviews in print publications, Johnson has also been a leader in using social media as a reviewing tool. Since 2006, her blog, Reading the Past, has been offering reviews and interviews with writers of historical fiction and expanding the conversation about the genre. Johnson is also an active participant in the biblio-centered social networks on Goodreads, Librarything and Facebook.

Morris Wins RUSA's 2012 Zora Neale Hurston Award

The Zora Neale Hurston Award, sponsored by Harper Perennial, is given to honor librarians who have demonstrated leadership in promoting African American literature. Morris was selected for her work in advocating collection building and reader's advisory services for African American literature. She was an early advocate for street literature, creating one of the first urban fiction collections in 2000, and writing articles and blog posts to help educate fellow librarians. Her most recent work, The Reader's Advisory Guide to Street Literature, published in 2012.

Vanessa Irvin Morris

Sneve, Guest and Fortunate Eagle Win American Indian Youth Literature Awards

The American Indian Youth Literature Awards were created to identify and honor the very best writing and illustrations by and about American Indians, Alaska Natives, Canadian First Nations and Native Hawaiians. The winning and honor titles authentically convey the past and present of the American Indian experience. The awards are given in three categories — Picture Book, Middle School and Young Adult.

"We hope that these awards will raise the visibility of quality works by American Indian authors and artists," said AILA President Sandy Littletree, "These awards help librarians, teachers and parents select quality books by and about Native people, titles that are accurate, non-stereotypical and

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