Mary Ellen LoPresti Publication Award

The LoPresti Publication Award recognizes and encourages excellence in art publications in the southeastern United States.

Announcing: The 2022 award winners!

View all previous LoPresti Award winners and runners-up

About the Award  |  Award Categories  |  Eligibility Criteria  |  Selection Criteria  |  Award Timetable

About the Award

The Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) is the largest international professional organization devoted to art librarianship. The Southeast Chapter of ARLIS/NA established the LoPresti Publication Award Competition in 1985 to recognize and encourage excellence in art publications issued in the Southeastern United States. The publication awards are named for Mary Ellen LoPresti, who was the Design Librarian at the Harrye B. Lyons Design Library, North Carolina State University, until her death in 1985. The winners are kept in the ARLIS/NA Southeast Chapter’s archives at Duke University.

Award Categories

  • Books, Exhibition Catalogs, Serials, Artist’s Books, and in other categories as warranted.
  • Awards may be given in any or all of the above categories.
  • More than one award may be given in a single category for a particular award year.
  • Awards may or may not be given for a particular category for a particular award year.

Eligibility Criteria

  1. For this award the copyright date published in an entry IS the year of publication. Eligible publication dates are the year prior to the calendar year in which the award is presented (e.g. publication date 2013 for the award presented in 2014). The award committee will have the responsibility for determining year of publication for entries with no printed copyright date. Entries with copyright dates other than the eligible year will be disallowed.
  2. Entries with copyright dates after the eligible year will be automatically entered in the following year’s award competition.
  3. Entries must be received no later than August 31 or each year. Entries received later than that date will not be considered.
  4. Subjects of the entries are restricted to the visual arts. This includes but is not restricted to fine arts, illustration, graphic design, photography, industrial design, animation, computer arts, decorative arts, set design, architecture, and interior design.
  5. Types of entries accepted are books, exhibition catalogs, serials and artist’s books. In-house newsletters, posters, invitations and other promotional materials will not be considered.
  6. Entries must be published in the southeastern United States of America: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, and the Virgin Islands. Entries that are published outside the southeastern United States of America but copyrighted to an institution within the southeastern United States of America will be eligible.
  7. There are no restrictions on the number of entries. Only one copy of each entry is required.
  8. There are no restrictions on who may enter. Museums, galleries, educational institutions, libraries, organizations, commercial presses and individuals are all eligible to enter.

Selection Criteria

The award is for excellence in visual arts publishing. Preference will be shown toward subjects of southeastern United States visual arts. The selection criteria are:

  1. Usefulness to general library visual arts collections.
  2. Scholarship.
  3. Scholarly apparatus (contains notes, bibliography, index, captions, credits, etc., where appropriate).
  4. Image quality.
  5. Design quality (aesthetics and construction).
  6. Content appropriate to its category.

Timetable

  • August 31: Deadline to receive entries.
  • Oct./Nov. Award announced at ARLIS/SE annual business meeting
  • Dec. 15 Deadline to mail award certificates, mail press release about winners, mail regrets letters to publishers and mail winners announcement to all publishers who received announcement letters.

Winners of the awards will be announced at the ARLIS/NA Southeast Chapter Conference meeting, held annually in late autumn. Winners will be notified by mail and will be reported in various regional library and arts publications. There is no entry fee, but ARLIS/SE reserves the right to retain all works submitted for consideration. The winning publications are housed at the Duke University East Campus Library in Durham, NC.