C.F.W. Coker Award for Description
Purpose and Criteria for Selection:
Established in 1984, this award recognizes finding aids, finding aid systems, projects that involve innovative development in archival description, or descriptive tools that enable archivists to produce effective finding aids. To merit serious consideration for the award, nominees must, in some significant way, set national standards, represent a model for archival description, or otherwise have a substantial impact on descriptive practices. The following types of works or activities may be considered:
- Finding aids, including, among others, multi-institutional guides, record surveys, repository guides, special subject lists, finding aids to individual collections or records groups, and narrative descriptions of holdings.
- Finding aid systems, including, among others, manual or automatic indexing systems, computer databases, or current awareness systems for notifying users of holdings.
- Descriptive tools that enable archivists to produce more effective finding aids, including, among others, subject thesauri, authority files, data element dictionaries, manuals establishing descriptive standards, and such reference works as atlases and administrative histories.
- Projects that involve innovative developments in archival description, including, among others, cooperative ventures that result in the exchange of finding aid information among repositories, efforts at building national information systems, and survey projects.
Eligibility:
Individuals, institutions, or groups of individuals or institutions. There are no restrictions on the format in which information is presented and formats may include printed volumes, card catalogs, computerized files, microforms, and slide presentations. Both published and unpublished works produced during the preceding calendar year are eligible. This award is not intended for books or articles on descriptive theory. Works and activities must involve projects located primarily in North America.
Nomination Requirements:
A completed nomination form and the required number of copies of the finding aid.
Sponsor and Funding:
The Society of American Archivists Foundation, in memory of C.F.W. Coker, a Fellow of the Society of American Archivists who worked at the National Archives and Records Administration and the Library of Congress, where he was the head of the Reference and Reader Service Section in the Manuscript Division. Coker was also director of the Modern Archives Institute, editor of The American Archivist, and general editor of the first SAA Basic Manual Series.
Prize:
A certificate and a cash prize consisting of the income of the prize fund for that year.
First Awarded:
1984
Selection Committee:
The Coker Award Subcommittee of the SAA Awards Committee consists of four members of the Society of American Archivists (one of whom shall be the current chair of the Description Section, who shall serve a term concurrent with his or her office) and one of the co-chairs of the Awards Committee (ex officio). One of the remaining members of the subcommittee shall be appointed each year by the SAA President-elect to serve a three-year term. The senior member of the subcommittee in years of service shall serve as chair and present the award.
Application Deadline and Nomination Form:
All nominations shall be submitted to SAA by February 28 of each year. Download the nomination form as a PDF or RTF. Send 5 copies of the completed form and 3 copies of the finding aid to:
C.F.W. Coker Award Subcommittee
Society of American Archivists
17 North State Street, Suite 1425
Chicago, IL 60602-3315
Electronic submissions also are acceptable and should be sent to awards[at]archivists.org. Please indicate "C.F.W. Coker Award" in the email subject line. Use standard file applications such as Word, Excel, or Adobe; attachments should not exceed 5MB.
Questions should be directed to the Chair of the C.F.W. Coker Award Subcommittee.
C.F.W. Coker Award Recipients:
1984: Roy Turnbaugh
1985: Debra L. Newman
1986: Nancy Sahli, Lisa B. Weber
1987: Not awarded
1988: Frederick Honhart
1989: Scott Cline
1990: The Center for Legislative Archives (NARA)
1991: David Brumberg, Elaine Engst
1992: Not awarded
1993: Diane Vogt-O'Connor
1994: Not awarded
1995: Robert M. Kvasnicka
1996: Not awarded
1997: Robert B. Matchette; Honorable Mention: Mary Lynn McCree Bryan
1998: Encoded Archival Description Working Group
1999: Francis X. Blouin, Leonard A. Coombs, Claudia Carlen, Elizabeth Yakel, Katherine J. Gill
2000: Not awarded
2001: Waverly Lowell, Kelcy Shepherd
2002: Not awarded
2003: Not awarded
2004: RLG's EAD Advisory Group
2005: Online Archives of California
2006: The Walt Whitman Archive
2007: Greg Bradsher
2008: The Archivists’ Toolkit™ (AT)
2009: World War II: Guide to Records Relating to U.S. Military Participation
2010: North Carolina State University Libraries Special Collections Research Center
2011: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum
