Congratulations to Sarah Kortemeier, the Poetry Center's Library Specialist, who was awarded the 2016 Miriam Braverman Memorial Prize by the Progressive Librarians Guild (PLG)! Her essay, “I'll Drown My Book: Visibility, Gender, and Classification in The University of Arizona Poetry Center Library,” concerns the persistent gender imbalance in literary publishing.  As she wrote in her essay, she “seek[s] to highlight and amplify the voices of female poets in the holdings of a single library by enhancing subject analysis in cataloging practices and creating a shelf marking system for anthologies that focus on women's writing.” 

The Braverman Memorial Prize is awarded annually to a student in Library Science or Archival Studies for an essay submitted on the theme of progressive or activist librarianship. As winner of the prize, Kortemeier receives a $500 stipend toward expenses at ALA Annual, and her essay will be published in an upcoming issue of Progressive Librarian, the PLG journal. Additionally, she will be given the opportunity to apply her perspective in writing about the conference for the PLG bulletin. 

Sarah says she's thrilled to be able to share her research, and she wants to emphasize the collaborative aspect of the project and the support she's received from fellow Poetry Center colleagues. Her project, which aims to make anthologies by diverse authors more visible on the shelf and in the catalog, can be seen here at the Poetry Center. This summer, for example, the library staff are working to highlight poetry of disability and ecopoetry in the Anthologies section, among other social justice themes.

Photo credit: Cybele Knowles