The IUB Libraries are pleased to announce the winners of the 2005-2006 Undergraduate Library Research Award.

Jordan Pickett will receive $1,000 for his paper Iconography of the Virgin's Dormition: New Images and Interpretations, and Jeremy Watt will receive $500 for The Incongruous Bull: "In Supremo Apostolatus."

This is the first year IUB Libraries has sponsored the Undergraduate Library Research Award, which recognizes quality and excellence in undergraduate projects.

Jordan, who will graduate this August, is studying Art History, Religious Studies, and Medieval Studies. He wrote his paper for FA445: Byzantine Art History in spring 2005.

To complete his research, Jordan made use of French and English texts available at the Herman B Wells Library, studied materials at the Fine Arts Library, and searched for images in the Princeton Index of Early Christian Art. At the Fine Arts Library, Jordan found information on an overlooked eulogia tablet from the fifth century, which helped shape his arguments and his led him to research its iconography and background.

"The resources of the Indiana University Library have allowed me to concentrate not just on the scholarly research widely available, but have given me access to raw images and text, less commonly available, to create an original and new perspective on a tradition which stretches back nearly fifteen centuries," Jordan wrote in an essay describing his research strategies.

Jeremy is studying Religious Studies, Economics, and Sociology and is also expected to graduate this August. His paper was a Senior Honors Essay which passed "with honors" in December 2005.

While writing his paper, Jeremy frequently consulted with Celestina Wroth, the subject librarian for History, Religious Studies, and History of Philosophy of Science, and with Andrea Singer, the foreign documents librarian in Government Information, Microform & Statistical Services, to find library materials. He visited the Reference Department at the Wells Library, accessed the ATA Religion database, and visited the Lilly Library and Kinsey Institute Library to study special documents. 

"This essay is one of the best that I have read from an undergraduate and certainly one that made the most extensive use of what the library and the librarians have to offer to undergraduates," wrote Associate Professor J. Albert Harrill, who nominated Jeremy's paper for the award.

The selection panel, comprised of librarians and faculty on the Bloomington Faculty Council Library Committee, were impressed with Jordan and Jeremy's thorough research and their use of library resources and services.