2023 Applestein Sweren Winners

The Goucher College Library is proud to announce the winners of the 2023 Applestein-Sweren Prize for book collecting! The competition, made possible by an endowment established in 2012 by Betty Applestein Sweren ’52 and Dr. Edgar Sweren, encourages Goucher students to read for enjoyment and to develop personal libraries throughout their lives; to appreciate the special qualities of printed or illustrated works; and to read, research, and preserve their collected works for pleasure and scholarship.

The prizes will be awarded on April 27, 2023, at 5:30pm in Kelly Lecture Hall. All community members, family, and friends are invited to join in the celebration events.goucher.edu/calendar/day/2023/4/27

The winners of this year’s Applestein-Sweren Prizes are:

First Place: Reese Finnigan ’25, "My Father's House"  

Second Place: Joan Firestein ’23, "The Secrets to My Nancy Drew Collection"  

Third Place: Autumn Krist ’23, "Changing with the World"  

Honorable Mention, Kendra Medlin ’26, "On Course: Book to Basics"  

The winners' essays are available in eScholarship@Goucher.  All prize winners are eligible to compete for the $2,500 national prize awarded by the National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest, sponsored by the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America (ABAA), the Fellowship of American Bibliophilic Societies (FABS), the Grolier Club, and the Center for the Book and the Rare Books and Special Collections Division (the Library of Congress).