{"id":6321,"date":"2014-04-10T14:51:51","date_gmt":"2014-04-10T18:51:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.brown.edu\/libnews\/?p=6321"},"modified":"2025-08-18T20:46:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T20:46:07","slug":"2014undergradresearchprize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/2014undergradresearchprize\/","title":{"rendered":"Winners of the 2014 Undergraduate Research Prize for Excellence in Library Research"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"20110106-ADM-0004\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Brown University Library is pleased to announce the winners of the 2014 Undergraduate Research Prize for Excellence in Library Research<\/strong>: Leah Jones \u201817 for her paper \u201cSoldiers of Solidarity: The Boston Committee for Health Rights in Central America\u201d and Richard Salam\u00e9\u00a0\u201816 for his paper \u201cClocks and Empire: an Indian Case Study.\u201d The field of applicants this year was so strong and broad, the Library decided to award two prizes of $750 each.<\/p>\n

In partnership with the\u00a0Office of the Dean of the College<\/a>, the\u00a0Brown University Library<\/a>\u00a0sponsors the annual Undergraduate\u00a0Research\u00a0Prize, awarded each\u00a0April. The purpose of the prize is to recognize excellence in undergraduate research projects that make creative and extensive use of the Brown University Library’s collections including, but not limited to, print resources, databases, primary resources, and materials in all media. The project may take the form of a traditional paper, a database, a website or other digital project. Please visit the website for more information: http:\/\/library.brown.edu\/ugresearchprize\/index.php.<\/p>\n

\u201cSoldiers of Solidarity: The Boston Committee for Health Rights in Central America\u201d by Leah Jones<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jone’s paper tells the story of the Boston Committee for Health Rights. During the Reagan Presidency, when the US intervened to support anti-communist regimes, U.S. support for the counterinsurgency took a significant toll on the\u00a0populations of Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala. As both a human and political gesture, the Boston Committee, which consisted of Boston area health professionals, tried to relieve the burden on the people of these three countries. Jones describes the genesis of the paper: \u201cThe Hall-Hoag Collection of Dissenting and Extremist Printed Propaganda (John Hay Library) provided the foundation for my research….After browsing through several folders in the Collection, one specific folder caught my attention. The Boston Committee for Health Rights in Central America (BCHR) portfolio was actually rather barren and only consisted of six documents: a couple of hand-written notes, two type-written memos, a press statement, and a photocopied New York Times<\/em> article. This otherwise unremarkable folder addressed one of my passions: the improvement of health conditions in Central America.\u201d<\/p>\n

A member of the review committee\u00a0explains\u00a0that\u00a0Jones\u2019s paper\u00a0\u201cmakes excellent use of archival, scholarly, and eyewitness sources to document an overlooked but notable intervention in American politics by a group of concerned professionals….I was even more impressed to learn that this student is in her first year at Brown!\u201d Another faculty reviewer\u00a0noted that this paper “is first rate investigatory journalism.\u201d \u00a0Jones\u2019s faculty sponsor, Naoko Shibusawa, wrote in recommending her paper: \u201c[She] approached this topic just like an investigative journalist, which is a lot of how historical research is like for those of us who study the more contemporary era. Excellent use of oral interviews and correspondence, as well as web research to unearth more information on main characters. This paper was fun to read and inspiring.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cClocks and Empire: An Indian Case Study\u201d by Richard\u00a0Salam\u00e9<\/strong><\/p>\n

Salam\u00e9’s\u00a0paper focuses on the destruction of the clock in Bombay\u2019s Crawford Market during the riots of 1898. He gives a British context to the clock, explaining its role in the politics of colonial India, then he posits several justifications for the shooting and destruction of the clock by Indian rioters. Salam\u00e9’s\u00a0faculty advisor, Jo Guldi, praises\u00a0the research\u00a0and the final product:\u00a0\u201cRick’s paper entailed months of exploration in available archives of Indian newspapers, looking for evidence of clocks in public spaces that would substantiate a subaltern-based, bottom-up account of how Indians accepted or rejected the western standardization of clock time. The paper represents a theoretically sophisticated question of relative understandings of time, and it also made excellent strategic use of unusual archives — Indian newspapers contrasted against the accounts of British elites who caused clocks to be placed in public spaces in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n

As with Jones, a first year student,\u00a0reviewers\u00a0were impressed with sophomore Salam\u00e9’s\u00a0abilities: \u201cHis explanation of his research shows how he traced the breadcrumbs through footnotes to get to the object of his paper. It\u2019s an inherently interesting approach to history, and the paper is beautifully written. The narrative compels the reader to continue to the end of the story. [He] incorporates other disciplines into his research, looking at literary and newspaper representations of clocks. It\u2019s hard to believe that this student is a sophomore!\u201d<\/p>\n

One reviewer praises the research process and its promise in response to\u00a0Salam\u00e9’s work, but the words are\u00a0apropos to Jones’s work as well: \u201cThe gathering of primary sources material from the Indian press, as informed by reasonable command of scholarship on colonial culture and politics, demonstrates a wide ranging and inventive understanding of what library research can accomplish.\u201d<\/p>\n

All members of the review committee were impressed with the quality of this year’s\u00a0submissions. Brown students are taking\u00a0innovative approaches\u00a0to research and making meaningful and constructive use of the Library’s resources.\u00a0We look forward to seeing what students are researching and writing about next year!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Brown University Library is pleased to announce the winners of the 2014 Undergraduate Research Prize for Excellence in Library Research: Leah Jones \u201817 for her paper \u201cSoldiers of Solidarity: The Boston Committee for Health Rights in Central America\u201d and Richard Salam\u00e9\u00a0\u201816 for his paper \u201cClocks and Empire: an Indian Case Study.\u201d The field of … Winners of the 2014 Undergraduate Research Prize for Excellence in Library Research<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research-award"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6321"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16613,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6321\/revisions\/16613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}