ALA Midwinter 2011: RUSA Book and Media Awards Announced
Outstanding titles include top reference, top genre fiction, and more; Bill Ott wins Louis Shores Award for reviewing By Rebecca Miller Jan 12, 2011Over 200 librarians and publishing representatives gathered at the Hyatt Manchester in San Diego during the Midwinter Meeting for the unveiling of the Reference and User Services Association's (RUSA) 2010 Book and Media Awards. The books noted range from best fiction and nonfiction, to best genre, best reference titles, and more.
Among the many titles recognized, the 12 top fiction titles included Emma Donoghue's Room: A Novel (Little, Brown) and Jonathan Franzen's Freedom (Farrar), while the 12 nonfiction titles ranged from Patti Smith's Just Kids (Ecco) to Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Crown) to Ron Chernow's Washington: A Life (Penguin).
(Room, Freedom, and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks are all LJ Best Books of 2010; Just Kids was also selected.)
In reference, Oxford University Press took the Darmouth Medal for its multidisciplinary ten-volume Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion and online Berg Fashion Library. Oxford and Sage dominated the Outstanding Reference Sources list, with five titles each from 13 total.
Booklist's longtime editor and publisher, Bill Ott, was named winner of the 2011 Louis Shores Award for book reviewing. He was selected, according to a press release, for his editing role, but also for his own reviewing. The release noted, "a Bill Ott review is not only a pleasure to read for its own sake, but eloquently conveys the appeal of a book and gives selectors a real sense of why a book does or does not deserve a place in their collection."
For the full lists see the RUSABlog.
Visit LJ/SLJ's ALA Conference News page for additional coverage of the Midwinter Meeting; and follow us on Flickr and Twitter (@LibraryJournal).
