The 2027 William L. Mitchell Prize is Open for Submissions
William L. Mitchell Prize
The Mitchell Prize for research on British serials was endowed to honor William L. Mitchell, former librarian at the Kenneth Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas, where he was curator of the Richmond P. and Marjorie N. Bond Collection of 18th-Century British Newspapers and Periodicals and of the Edmund Curll Collection. Awarded every three years, the prize brings a cash award of $1,000 and a year’s membership in the Society.
The Prize serves as an encouragement to scholars engaged in bibliographical scholarship on 18th-century periodicals published in English or in any language (including Indigenous languages) within the British Isles, its colonies, former colonies, and occupied territories including those in North America, Australia, the Caribbean, South Africa, and modern-day Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. The prize defines 18th-century periodicals as serial publications produced no earlier than 1688 and no later than the first decade of the 19th century; subject materials must be firmly rooted within the 1700–1800 time period. Read more
Eligibility
Eligible scholarship may take the form of a book or article, a master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation defended and approved, or research results distributed in another manner, such as on a website. Eligible scholarship must have been published or, if a dissertation or thesis, approved during the year of the deadline or the three previous calendar years. 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 Unpublished dissertations and theses must be accompanied by a letter from their authors’ directors attesting to their having been approved.
All scholars with an active BSA membership are eligible to apply for the Mitchell Prize 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. Since the prize is designed to promote research on the history of the periodical and the periodical press, the prize committee encourages applications by young or junior scholars who have not as yet published extensively. Applicants may nominate themselves or be nominated by other persons, including publishers, journal editors, and dissertation and thesis directors.
Submit
The next prize will be awarded in January 2027; submissions will be open from 15 April to 15 August 2026.
In addition to the completion of the 2027 Mitchell Prize Submission Form, please send the following as separate PDF or Word (.doc or .docx) files to mitchell.prize@bibsocamer.org:at executive.director@bibsocamer.org.
A letter of intent addressed to the “Mitchell Prize Committee”
A curriculum vitae
Any documentation regarding the approval of a theses or a dissertation or confirming the date of a publication
Mailed copies of these documents will not be accepted.
Web-based nominations do not require the submission of print copies, but 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.
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.
Questions regarding the award should be addressed to the chair of the Mitchell Prize jury, Dr. Jill Gage:
Dr. Jill Gage, Custodian of the John M. Wing Foundation on the History of Printing
Newberry Library, Chicago IL
Email: mitchell.prize@bibsocamer.org
Close