David Filner '96 won this year's prize for the best student book collection. Root director of libraries Ray English presented the prize--$300--just before a talk 29 April sponsored by the Friends of the Oberlin College Library. Some of the collection is now on display on the main level of Mudd.
Filner, a double-degree student majoring in English and viola, began his collection of books by William Faulkner two years ago after taking a course in Faulkner, English 351. "We had only been required to read eight of his novels, but once the class had finished I was starved for more," Filner says. He began collecting the material easiest to obtain--Faulkner's 19 major novels. He was soon looking for Faulkner's other writing, and a bookstore in Ann Arbor yielded his most exciting find so far: Faulkner's MGM Screenplays. For now Filner is collecting only works by Faulkner, but "once I have found all the first hand sources . . . I may begin to add some biography."
The prize for the book-collecting contest was donated by Marybeth Bridegam '57 and Amherst College library director Willis Bridegam. Judges were Paul Csank of Keisogloff Rare Books, Cleveland; Susan Hill of Miranda Books, Oberlin; and John Zubal of John T. Zubal, Inc., Scholarly and Antiquarian Books, Cleveland.
