“It sounds a little silly, but I think Nancy Drew was instrumental in my coming to Scripps,” confesses Nora Boedecker ’10, recipient of the 2010 Slocum Award for the best personal library accumulated during her four years at Scripps College. Not only did the Nancy Drew series spark Nora’s interest in reading, it even served as fodder for her college application essay and ultimately formed the basis of her American Studies thesis. Nora’s winning collection consists of 80 Nancy Drew mysteries and collectibles a Nancy Drew cookbook, no less, assorted scholarly books on the girl sleuth, as well as a few treasured first-edition Hardy Boy mysteries passed down from her grandfather.
Established in 1936, the Slocum Award for the best personal library collection is a favorite honor among Scripps College students, as it represents the unique and individualistic nature of the College and its graduates as well as the care and attention each student is encouraged to give to her evolving education.
“I think it is fabulous that Scripps has an award like this,” Nora says. “It shows a real dedication to the appreciation of books as little pieces of history. So much of the library system is being digitized and streamlined that it is nice to have an award that encourages a little healthy resistance to that change. I, for one, will never read a Nancy Drew on a Kindle.”
Collections submitted for the 2010 Slocum Award ran the gamut from urban art and politics to feminist narrative and theory to the African diaspora in the Americas. Submissions were exhibited in Scripps’ Dennison Library for all to admire. Honorable mention awards went to Anna-Marie Keleman ’10 for her collection of Korean and Japanese language and pop culture books and to Maria Luca ’10 for her eclectic range of interdisciplinary science books.
“My Scripps education started out like many others,” Maria writes in the essay accompanying her book collection. “I was a pre-med English major, ready to take the world by storm.”
In high school, Maria’s dual interests in creative writing and science flourished, but she wondered what the interdisciplinary Core 1 class would really be like.
“The discussions related to the Enlightenment, philosophy, science, art, music—I truly adored it all,” Maria recalls. “Although I later switched to a bio-chemistry major, I still love talking about science and its influences on the humanities. I am incredibly passionate about making science a subject that everyone can understand and appreciate, and, thanks to Core, I discovered this early.”
Describing her collection as “a source of inspiration and entertainment,” Maria assembled a mix of books written by scientists, journalists, economists, and professional science writers. One, Luca Turin’s The Secret of Scent, influenced her NSF Graduate Fellowship proposal. While Maria is entering a doctoral program in biochemistry at UC San Diego this fall, she continues to write and blog in her spare time.
While Nora had to leave her ever-growing book collection with her family in Maryland, Anna-Marie will be packing at least a few of her volumes as she heads off to Korea to teach English. As she writes in her essay submission, “This fall will be the new addition to my collection: life experience.”