More Information

Eligibility

To be eligible, applicants must:

  • Be currently enrolled at the time of application submission, full-time UCLA undergraduates at any class level and in any discipline. Graduate students and post-baccalaureates are not eligible. Seniors who graduate in the winter quarter before the awards in spring are eligible to apply.
  • Have completed a research paper or project at UCLA during the previous three academic quarters, including study abroad and, if applicable, summer session.
  • Agree to provide the research paper or project and/or the reflective essay for public display in the UCLA Library and/or online.
  • Agree to attend the reception when the winners are honored.
  • If you’ve ever been employed or are currently employed at UCLA, your research paper must be unrelated to work performed during your employment.
  • If you are awarded the prize and are currently employed at UCLA, your home department will process the award payment through UCPath. The Library will transfer award funds to your home department and ask you to inform your HR/Payroll office.

*Students may submit more than one project for a different course and different prize category (only one submission per project category). If selected for a winning prize, students will win in ONE category only. Please reach out to libraryprize@library.ucla.edu (opens in a new tab)with questions.

Payment Mechanism

International students
The award funds will be deposited to your BruinCard. Please see list of BruinCard merchants(opens in a new tab).

Current student employees
If you are awarded the prize and are currently employed at UCLA, your home department will process the award payment through UCLA’s payroll system, UCPath. The Library will transfer the funding to your home department and ask you to inform your HR/Payroll office.

Former student employees, employed within the past 2-years
Library Human Resources will contact you to initiate payment.

Non-employees
Payment will be processed through UCLA’s Accounts Payable department. You will be asked to setup a vendor profile via PaymentWorks (UCLA’s vendor system). Payment processing via Accounts Payable is approximately 6 weeks.

Note: The prize money for group projects will be split evenly between awardees.

Application Procedures

All of the following are required in your application:

  • Your Library Use Statement will describe your research process: the methods and strategies you learned or developed to access the information you needed for your work. Download Library Use Statement Guidelines(opens in a new tab).
  • A final or near-final version of the project. If the project is a paper, it must be written in 12-point Times New Roman font, double-spaced, with 1-inch margins. Exceptions will be made for papers produced using LaTeX or other discipline-specific formats. Please include a detailed description if the project is in a format that cannot be submitted electronically, such as an architectural model, CD, or DVD. If the project is on the Web, please submit the URL on the application form. Please email libraryprize@library.ucla.edu(opens in a new tab) if you have any questions.
  • A bibliography in a recognized style. Tips on the bibliography's format and contents are available below.

Download this rubric(opens in a new tab) to see how our judges will evaluate your project.

Bibliography Tips

When preparing your bibliography, keep the following points in mind:

  • Format the bibliography using a citation style guide(opens in a new tab) appropriate to the paper or project’s discipline.
  • Cite all sources you used, even if you did not directly quote from them.
  • For long bibliographies, subdividing the sources into categories may be helpful, although an alphabetical list is also acceptable.