Every semester, the Library Showcase highlights outstanding projects created using Library resources. In Spring 2023 we accepted 15 submissions, and are delighted to announce the following winners of the Voters’ Choice and Library Staff Pick Awards for the Spring 2023 semester.
The Voters’ Choice award goes to Julia Novak, MAAS '23, for her short film Just a Napkin that delves into the debate about the differences between art and craft. In Julia’s video, which received the highest number of votes from the Georgetown community, we watch as she skillfully embroiders “The Creation of Adam” by Michelangelo on a napkin. We then get to experience the discomfort of watching her destroy her beautiful artwork as she uses the napkin to wipe barbecue sauce from her face as she eats a plate of ribs. To create her video, Julia used equipment, spaces, and software found in the Gelardin Center and she received help from Multimedia Specialist Barrinton Baynes.
The Library Staff Pick Award is presented for works that make the best use of library resources, and we are thrilled and honored to have two winners for Spring 2023. Haley Resnick’s (Col '23) outstanding research for her American Studies thesis Mother Knows Best: Maternal Activism in the 21st-Century Book Banning Conversation is both timely and of great interest to librarians with the surge in book bans and challenges over the last few years. When asked about her research, Haley said, “The Library was incredibly helpful in my completion of this thesis. Resources used . . . included nearly all the databases listed on the American Studies guide, and here is a link that captures how many books I borrowed. This photo, of course, does not do justice to the thousands of online articles and content I also accessed from the Library as well as the hours of thesis-writing which I completed in a Lau 4 cubicle.”
The Library Staff Pick Award for Spring 2023 also goes to Nikisha Kotwal, LDT '24, for her wonderfully creative Let's Make Chana Chaat: A Pretend-Play Recipe Book, which was a final deliverable for her Creativity and Design Class in the Learning, Design and Technology Program. In addition to using the Maker Hub for her coursework, Nikisha is also a volunteer in the space, generously sharing her skills and time with the Georgetown community. She told us that, “The most powerful thing that I learned through the process of creating the work was that bringing out my inner child to play while designing this helped me to design something that children would enjoy and engage with.”
The Library congratulates all of the winners and is honored to highlight these excellent creative works along with the many other outstanding projects in the Library Showcase.