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RIVERSIDE, Calif.—(www.ucr.edu) Want to turn that personal book collection at home or in your dorm room into cash? If they have the right stuff, two students — one undergraduate and one graduate — will walk away with $400 awards at the UC Riverside Libraries’ inaugural Adam R. Petko Student Book Collection Competition.

The goal of this first-ever competition is to spark in students an appreciation of reading, book printing as an art form, and the intellectual activities of creating and assembling a book collection. Paperback books may be included. Non-book materials may represent no more than 20 percent of the collection. The deadline for application is April 2, 2004. Final judging and presentation will take place at the Rivera Library on Friday, May 7.

A generous and anonymous donor has underwritten the competition with the goal of making the contest an annual event. UC Riverside joins UCLA and the University of Washington, St. Louis in the competition.

Student book collections will be judged by the extent to which they represent a well-defined field of interest. Each contestant must submit a one-page statement describing how and why the collection was assembled. Each entry must have two annotated bibliographies, one reflecting the collection and the second, listing up to 10 additional titles which the contestant would like to add in the future.

Contestants must be full-time students to participate. Collections need not consist of rare or expensive books; the collections may cover any topic. Although collections may be large, submissions for consideration to the contest may contain no more than 50 items. The students must also own the books that comprise the collection.

Contest rules, applications and references for creating bibliographies are available at both the Science and the Tomás Rivera libraries or by going to the UC Riverside Libraries Web site and clicking on the Adam Repan Petko Student Book Collection Competition link.

Participants needing help in compiling their collections may seek assistance through the ABC of Book Collectors guide by John Carter. For more information please contact Melissa Conway Head of Special Collections at 909-787-3233.

Adam Repan Petko (1896-1995) was an immigrant to the United States in 1912, who had a great and abiding interest in the literacy of his fellow immigrants, and especially for their young children who had been denied formal education in their native lands.

UC Riverside’s Libraries are the focal points for research and study on campus. Their collections include 2,081,146 volumes, 12,444 serial subscriptions and 1,672,042 microforms housed in five facilities: the Tomás Rivera Library (serving the humanities, arts and social sciences); the Science Library; the Music Library; Media Library; and Special Collections, housing rare books and manuscripts, and unique archival resources. For more about the UC Riverside Libraries, go to http://library.ucr.edu/.

The University of California, Riverside (www.ucr.edu) is a doctoral research university, a living laboratory for groundbreaking exploration of issues critical to Inland Southern California, the state and communities around the world. Reflecting California's diverse culture, UCR's enrollment has exceeded 20,500 students. The campus will open a medical school in 2013 and has reached the heart of the Coachella Valley by way of the UCR Palm Desert Center. The campus has an annual statewide economic impact of more than $1 billion.

A broadcast studio with fiber cable to the AT&T Hollywood hub is available for live or taped interviews. UCR also has ISDN for radio interviews. To learn more, call (951) UCR-NEWS.