PROSE Awards

PROSE Awards
Awarded for '...the very best in professional and scholarly publishing.'
Country United States
Presented by The Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers
First awarded 1976
Official website http://proseawards.com/index.html

The American Publishers Awards for Professional and Scholarly Excellence (the PROSE Awards)[1] annually recognize achievements in professional and scholarly publishing. Presented by the Professional and Scholarly Publishing (PSP) Division of the Association of American Publishers (AAP), the awards are given to distinguished books, journals, and electronic content in over 40 categories. The awards have been judged by a panel of peer publishers, librarians, and medical professionals since 1976. Each year, the publishers of winning books, journals and eproducts are recognized at the PSP Annual Conference in Washington, D.C.

Award Categories

Book Subject Categories

Electronic Publication Categories - For electronic platforms and eproducts with multiple components. Electronic platforms and products are recognized in the following six categories:

Journals Categories - For print and electronic journals.

The PROSE Awards for Excellence - Chosen from among the winners of the books, eproducts and journals categories. One winner is recognized in each of the following categories:

Source: "PROSE Awards: How to Enter"[3]

The R.R. Hawkins Award

It is named after Reginald Robert Hawkins (1902–1999). He started his career at the New York Public Library (NYPL) as a reference assistant in 1926 and gradually worked his way to become the Chief of the Science and Technology Division of the NYPL from 1942-1952. Hawkins was very dedicated to the NYPL and engaged in various activities such as planning and hosting an exhibit on Technical Books and the War in 1943 as well as serving as the editor of the library's monthly review publication, New Technical Books.

In 1930, Hawkins compiled a list of writings by and about the American poet George Edward Woodberry (1855–1930). However, one of his most significant accomplishments was the authoring of the bibliography, Scientific, Medical, and Technical Books Published in the US. 1930-1944, which was published in 1946 with the support of the U.S. Department of State and an advisory committee of major publishers. Developed to aid in the rehabilitation of European libraries following World War II, the bibliography's success contributed to library rehabilitation abroad and to the acceptance of American science and scholarship in Europe. Hawkins also authored many books about home mechanics. He focused on writing to an audience he called “capable and fortunate -- the home mechanics-- who build things for the fun of it, and (sometimes) because their bank accounts will not stand the burden of having them built by professionals.”[4]

In addition to his work at the NYPL, Hawkins was also a member of the National Research Council, the American Library Association, the New York Library Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. R.R. Hawkins' dedication and passion for professional and scholarly publishing is quite evident through his robust career. “The R.R. Hawkins Award was created in 1976 to recognize outstanding scholarly works in all disciplines of the arts and sciences.”[5] The award has been given to more than 30 works since its inception. Winners have included Atlas of Clinical Gross Anatomy (Elsevier), The Race Between Education and Technology (Harvard University Press), Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews (WIREs) (John Wiley & Sons) and Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (Yale University Press).[6]

The PROSE Awards for Excellence

Award for Excellence in Humanities

Recipients

Year Award Publisher Book / Journal / eProduct
2011 R.R. Hawkins Award McGraw-Hill Professional The Diffusion Handbook: Applied Solutions for Engineers
2011 Award for Excellence in Humanities Cambridge University Press Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era, c. 680-850: A History
2011 Award for Excellence in Social Sciences Yale University Press Representing Justice: Invention, Controversy, and Rights in City-States and Democratic Courtrooms
2011 Award for Excellence in Physical Sciences & Mathematics McGraw-Hill Professional The Diffusion Handbook: Applied Solutions for Engineers
2011 Award for Excellence in Biological & Life Sciences Princeton University Press Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us about Morality
2011 Award for Excellence in Reference Works Princeton University Press The Crossley ID Guide: Eastern Birds
2010 R.R. Hawkins Award Yale University Press Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade
2010 Award for Excellence in Humanities University of California Press Autobiography of Mark Twain
2010 Award for Excellence in Social Sciences Oxford University Press Favela: Four Decades of Living on the Edge in Rio de Janeiro
2010 Award for Excellence in Physical Sciences & Mathematics John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Life in the World’s Oceans: Diversity, Distribution, and Abundance
2010 Award for Excellence in Biological & Life Sciences Cell Press Article of the Future
2010 Award for Excellence in Reference Works Yale University Press Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade

Source: "PROSE Awards: Winners"[7]

Notes

  1. ↑ http://www.pspcentral.org/rtawards/about_002.cfm
  2. ↑ http://www.asanet.org/footnotes/apr11/prose_0411.html
  3. ↑ http://proseawards.com/how-to-enter.html
  4. ↑ http://proseawards.com/about-rrh.html
  5. ↑ http://proseawards.com/about-rrh.html
  6. ↑ http://proseawards.com/index.html
  7. ↑ http://proseawards.com/current-winners.html

References