Barry Trott, Adult Services Consultant with the Library Development and Networking Division of the Library of Virginia, is the chair of RUSA’s Dartmouth Medal committee, devoted to selecting outstanding reference works each year. He talks to LJ about reference work, reference sources, and the work of the Dartmouth Medal committee.

What is the Dartmouth Medal? Can you tell our readers about its history and role in collections today?

The Dartmouth Medal recognizes the single best reference work (print or digital) published in the past year. The Dartmouth Medal was established in 1974 at the suggestion of Dean Lathem, the then-librarian at Dartmouth College. The first Dartmouth Medal was awarded to the New England Board of Higher Education for establishing NASIC, Northeast Academic Science Information Center, a regional experiment in the brokerage of information services. Since then, titles as varied as The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails (2022), Greenwood’s digital Pop Culture Universe database (2009), and The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1982) have received the medal.

The Dartmouth Medal is not necessarily intended as a broad collection tool (unlike, say, the RUSA/CODES Outstanding Reference Sources awards), although any major reference collection should certainly include the Dartmouth winner. Rather it is intended to honor a single work “of outstanding quality and significance.” This may be a title that could find a home in any reference collection, but it also may reflect a title that has a narrower audience but is nonetheless of highest quality—for example, the 2019 winner, Marine Fishes of Arctic Canada.

How does the Dartmouth committee work? What are your conversations like as you evaluate reference materials?

Like many award committees, the Dartmouth committee members suggest titles to request from their reading awareness of the publishing industry. The Dartmouth chair also contacts major reference publishers and university presses to inquire about titles that might be eligible for consideration. Over the course of the spring, summer, and fall, committee members receive copies of titles and begin the process of winnowing the list from several dozen titles to a short list of 5–10 titles for final consideration. The committee then meets in the winter, prior to the LibLearnX conference, to select a medal winner and up to three honorable mentions.

As we look at the books, we are considering quality of content, the presentation of the material, use of graphics, ease of use, construction of the item, and audience. The conversations, always cordial, dig into why this title might be worthy of the Dartmouth Medal. We are not seeking perfection, though that would be the ideal, but rather trying to decide what makes a particular title stand out from the other, often excellent submissions.

How do you define reference collections today? They are not confined to closed stacks any longer, or only collections of databases. What do you see as the full range of reference?

You could probably make an argument that any item in the library collection that answers a question is a “reference” book. This broad definition though may not be useful, as readers can find answers in fiction as much as in nonfiction writing. I think that contemporary reference collections, particularly in public libraries, need to focus on those areas that are most important to their users and that perhaps may not be captured in databases—things like local history, genealogy, and so on. These are areas where a local library has an advantage in terms of know the community and what is going to be valuable.

What are some of your favorite reference works from past years?

The copy of Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable that my grandmother gave me when I was 12 or so still resides on my nightstand (I was clearly fated to be a librarian, though did not realize it till much later). Although not an award winner, this is the epitome to me of a standard reference work—informative, witty, somewhat random.

What are some of your go-to reference resources?

In my work as a performer of historical music, I have to say that The New Grove Encyclopedia of Music and Musicians is a regularly consulted work, and I own a copy of the 1980 edition in my music library. I am also grateful for the great bibliographic collection Early English Books Online, a wonderful resource for research. More locally, the Virginia Chronicle,  a historical archive of Virginia newspapers, providing free access to full-text searching and digitized images of over three million newspaper pages, managed by my colleagues at the Library of Virginia, is a treasure beyond price for anyone doing local history or genealogical research.

Beyond reference, you are also known for your readers’ advisory work. Can you share some books you are enjoying right now and would like to suggest to readers?

I have been reading lots of poetry during the pandemic, both for solace and because I was finding it hard to read new titles. Some of my favorite collections have been Poetry of Presence: An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems [edited by Phyllis Cole-Dai and Ruby R. Wilson] and Healing the Divide: Poems of Kindness and Connection [edited by James Crews]. I also have been re-reading some favorite authors, spending time with characters I know and love—Ivan Doig, Rex Stout, Ursula K. Le Guin, John McPhee, Dorothy Sayers, and Terry Pratchett, among others. All of these writers helped me get through the past three years of difficult news and hard times.