Sokol Contest

On 11/24/2014 RRLC sent out this announcement:

Again this year, the Friends & Foundation of the Rochester Public Library will hold the Sokol High School Literary Awards Contest for student writers in grades 9 – 12. 

There are prizes for original poetry and prose, and students can submit their work written or performed. The entries are professionally judged, and there are cash prizes for the top entries.

The deadline for submissions is Friday, January 30, 2015, and the awards event will be on Thursday, April 30, 2015. The attachment provides additional information.

Flyers will be provided upon request. 

Rebecca Fuss

Director of Programming & Outreach

Friends & Foundation of RPL

Serving the Rochester Public Library

I decided to see if this was something we would be interested in pursuing and checked with Bob and Mary Jo:

From Bob: Interesting idea; do you know if their work is published elsewhere?

From Mary Jo:

Kim,

It's a good idea but I do have concerns about sustainability.  I don't want to start if it is dropped in a year or two. We also need to put energy into getting the Brockport student research award being talked about by 'friends of drake' off the ground.

 Based on their reaction, I contacted Rebecca Fuss by voicemail and email:

From: Myers, Kim [mailto:kmyers@brockport.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, December 24, 2014 9:46 AM
To: Fuss, Rebecca
Subject: Sokol Contest

Hi Rebecca,

I am following up the voicemail I left you on 12/24/14 about the Sokol Contest. I saw the advertisement, and we would like to offer the opportunity to have the award winners published in Digital Commons@Brockport, The College at Brockport’s Institution Repository (IR). I envision creating a community (group of collections) for outstanding scholarship from local high school students. Digital Commons can showcase a variety of formats, including video. This could be a nice addition to the program, allowing the winners to not only be able to list the prize on their resumes or college applications, but also to provide a permanent URL that people can use to view it. Digital Commons authors receive a monthly email telling them how many times their submission was downloaded, and other information. I’m happy to answer any questions you may have, and look forward to discussing this with you further.

To which she replied:

On 1/2/2015, Rebecca phoned me and expressed an interest in this idea. She asked many questions, and said she would need to talk to the board.

On the Monday following, she contacted me again and said:

Hi Kim,

The Sokol Committee accepts your invitation to post winning entries on Digital Commons@Brockport, conditioned on getting permission from the students.

Our judging will begin in February, and winners are announced in early April. We will get permission then and can get the entries to you shortly afterward.

May we also mention your website at the awards ceremony on April 30? That would give you some publicity, as well.

Thank you for thinking of us!

We are working out details now, including a permission slip.

Hi Rebecca,

I am very excited to work with you on this! I am attaching a draft permission document, for your feedback. If you have something else in mind to use to get their permission, that is fine, we just need to have their informed consent. Also, as far as metadata for the collection, I was thinking of having their name, email, school name, grade level, title and type of submission. Do you see any problem with displaying any of this information? We could collect the email addresses, but not have them visible if you wish. We would be happy to be mentioned at the awards ceremony, and would like to provide the winners with a certificate of some kind with the URL of their submission on it, if that would be all right with the committee.