The 2026 St. Louis Mercantile Library Prize is Open for Submissions
St. Louis Mercantile Library Prize
Funded by the St. Louis Mercantile Library at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, this prize encourages scholarship in the bibliography of American history and literature. Awarded every three years, the prize brings a cash award of $2,000 and a year’s membership in the Society. The next prize will be awarded in January 2026. Submissions will open in April 2025; submissions are due no later than 15 August 2025.
Submissions must concentrate on some aspect of American history and culture in the territories that now comprise the United States, or literature by American authors, or literature intended for publication in the territories that now comprise the United States. They should involve research in bibliography and printing history broadly conceived and focus on the material text as historical evidence for studying topics such as the history of book production, distribution, collecting, or reading. Studies of manuscript production and circulation, printing, publishing, and the allied trades, as these relate to American history and literature, are also welcome. Read more
Eligibility
Submissions may take the form of a published book or article, a master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation defended and approved, or research results distributed in another manner, such as a website.
Submissions must have been published or, if a dissertation or thesis, approved the year of the deadline or in the two previous calendar years. For the 2026 award, this means from January 2023 through December 2025 (if books or proofs are available by September 2025). If a publication has an incorrect nominal date disqualifying it for submission but an actual date of publication within the prize period, it may be nominated with a letter by the publisher or editor testifying to the actual date of publication. Unpublished dissertations and theses must be accompanied by a letter from the director attesting their approval.
Scholars are eligible to apply for the prize without regard to membership in the Bibliographical Society of America, or any other society, and without regard to citizenship or academic affiliation, degree, or rank. The prize will be awarded to the author of a particular work of scholarship without regard to the author’s prolonged or repeated contributions to the field. Applications are encouraged from young or junior scholars who have not as yet published extensively. Applicants may nominate themselves or be nominated by others.
Submit
The next prize will be awarded in January 2026; submissions will open in April 2025.
Please send the following as separate PDF or Word (.doc or .docx) files to mercantile.prize@bibsocamer.org:
If required, any documentation regarding the approval of a thesis or a dissertation, or confirming the date of a publication.
Web-based nominations must include a URL, and free access to the website and instructions regarding its use must be offered, along with a statement regarding plans for maintaining and/or archiving the website.
Mailed print copies of these documents will not be accepted.
Please also secure delivery of five (5) print copies of the nominated work to:
Bibliographical Society of America
257 S Hirst Street
Philadelphia, PA 19139
If for any reason the cost of securing review copies is prohibitive to submitting a nomination, please contact the BSA executive director by email at executive.director@bibsocamer.org.
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