The winners in the first MU Libraries Undergraduate Research Paper Contest presented their papers Tuesday in Ellis Library.

This is the first year the contest was held, librarian Anne Barker said. It is an offshoot of the Libraries’ faculty lecture series, first suggested two years ago by former special collections librarian Katie Carr.

“Initially, the thought had been to do a graduate paper and an undergraduate paper,” Barker said. “But there are already lots of opportunities for graduate students, so we decided to focus more on undergraduate research.”

After deliberation, junior Alexandrina Dimitrova was chosen for first place. An exchange student from Bulgaria, Dimitrova penned “Svatbarska muzika and Chalga: The Fusion of Music Genres that Contributes to a Social Change” for her English 1000 class.

Senior David Lamble’s “The Patriarchal Gentleman: American Gender Roles of Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Century Women Through the Mind of Thomas Jefferson” from his History 4972 class was chosen as second place.

“For the sake of brevity, this has gone under another revision in the last six hours,” he said with a laugh before beginning to read his paper Tuesday. “This is interesting to me, so I hope it’s interesting to you too.”

Both winners were honored at the Friends of the MU Libraries banquet on April 9.

Barker said both papers displayed strong writing and research skills.

“They both made really strong statements about how they used the library resources, and of course that’s warming to a librarian’s heart,” she said.

Around 15 undergraduates applied this year, Barker said. Those involved expect the contest to grow in the next year, as it has now had a year to mature.

What sets this contest apart from other research papers is that it judges more than just the content of the paper – it also judges the process under which it was written.

“The distinctive of this contest is that we evaluate not just the paper, but the statement about how the student used the library,” Barker said.

A panel consisting of librarians oversaw this part of the judging process. If they felt the student effectively utilized the library, they passed it on to a panel consisting of three faculty members and three Friends of the MU Libraries. Judging was completed in March.

The Friends of the MU Libraries funded the two awards in the contest – a $500 award for first place, and $250 for second place.

“We had asked them to provide only partial funding but they were so enthusiastic about it that they decided to actually provide all of the funding for the prizes,” Barker said.

The contest was advertised through social media and posters, among other methods. A special effort was made to reach faculty, MU Libraries spokeswoman Shannon Cary said.

“I think we tried to focus a lot on letting the faculty know that this existed,” she said. “When they see good research, they can encourage their students to apply.”

Papers can be submitted from now until Feb. 1 [here](http://mulibraries.missouri.edu/about/researchcontest.htm).