History of the "State Document of the Year Award"
In August of 1991, the State Documents Task Force submitted a proposal to the
executive board of DANJ outlining the creation of a "State Document of the Year
Award." The purpose of the award was to publicize the New Jersey state document
depository system, and to encourage New Jersey state agencies to publish high
quality documents and to distribute them through the depository system. This
award would also serve to alert New Jerseyans to the information resources
available at their state depository libraries, and to acknowledge the
contributions of DANJ and the document librarians in New Jersey.
The original proposal enumerated criteria in two categories: criteria a document
must meet to be considered for nomination and criteria to be used by the judging
panel. To be considered for nomination, the document must be published by a New
Jersey state department or agency and must be distributed through the depository
system. Additionally, the document must have been published in the year of the
award or the prior year. Nomination forms are mailed to depository libraries and
distributed through the depository system. Librarians may nominate a document
which conforms to the criteria listed on the form. A three-member judging
committee composed of State Documents Interest Group members selects the
document which best meets the judging criteria. The full list of nomination and
judging and criteria are available on the nomination form.
The award consists of a certificate that includes the name of the winning
document and the state agency that published it. The awards are presented at the
DANJ annual fall conference. Usually the author of the document or someone from
the document’s issuing agency attends the conference to accept the award. An
announcement of the winning document is placed in the DANJ Newsletter and
posted on the DANJ web site.
The first "State Document of the Year Award" was presented in 1992 and has been
awarded annually since then. Below is a list of documents selected as "State
Document of the Year."
In 1998, the State Documents Interest Group created a category for an "Internet
Site of the Year Award." The intent of this award is to draw attention to the
many documents and other publications now available from the State’s World Wide
Web homepage; to recognize those sites that librarians find particularly
valuable; and to honor the New Jersey departments which have developed useful or
imaginative sites which enhance the dissemination of information. The nomination
and judging criteria are similar to the criteria for a printed document with
changes to reflect the electronic format. The New Jersey Legislature Homepage
was selected as the recipient of the first "Internet Site of the Year Award."
Comments/Questions: Catherine Pontoriero
(webpage editor)
URL=http://www.danj.org/
Last updated:
The page was created by Laura Saurs in September 1997. It was previously maintained by
Wen-Hua Ren and hosted by the Rutgers instructional web server.
