Thursday, April 23, 1998
Book contest brings out diverse backgrounds of participants
COMPETITION: Theater, Malcolm X among topics of winning
collections
By Michelle Navarro
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
It was that time of the year again for bookworms to strut their
stuff.
Wednesday afternoon, a lively group of students and faculty
gathered in the University Research Library for the Robert B. and
Blanche Campbell Student Book Collection awards.
For 50 years, the competition has celebrated those fans of the
bounded pages of stories and tales. This year the first prize in
the undergraduate division went to third-year Malcolm Uyematsu Kao
for his collection, "The X-Files: A Malcolm X Book Collection."
According to Kao, it’s not so much a collection as it is a way
for Kao to get to know who Malcolm X was.
"I was named after him, and for the longest time I wanted to
change my name because I wasn’t really into the name Malcolm," he
said. "When I read his autobiography in high school, I got really
interested in him and felt really proud to have his name."
As a result, Kao said he almost felt a responsibility to learn
more about the historical icon and has thus acquired a 22-book
assortment that won him $600.
The first prize in the graduate division went to Danni
Bayles-Yeager, a library and information science student. Her
28-book collection on theater was dedicated to and inspired by her
older brother.
Bayles-Yeager said that when she first learned to read, her
brother, who was 10 years her senior, took her to the library to
sign up for a library card. When she was 12, he took her to his
school production of a Shakespeare play, where she met Romeo and
Juliet after the performance.
After watching her first musical production, "Showboat,"
Bayles-Yeager said she was a "lost cause."
Bayles-Yeager’s brother died in a plane crash several years ago
but what he gave her, an interest and love for theater and
literature has remained a part of her and lives on in the book
collection.
"All the things he gave me," she said, "have been with me."
Second prize in the undergraduate division went to Kristina
Wilcox for "Baseball is Life," and the graduate winner was Su Kim
Chung for her "Scarlett Fever: A Love Affair with Gone With the
Wind" collection.
A third prize in the graduate division was awarded to Trevor
James Bond for "Remarks on Wine by Robert M. Parker Jr. and Other
Influential Wine Guys."
"All of them were really well done," said Andrew Stancliffe,
head of the URL acquisitions department and judge for the
competition. "When we read their biographies, we could just feel
the enthusiasm."
The winning collections will be on display next month in Powell
Library.