Library Awards Collection Prizes

Ilya B. Leskov, a first-year student at Harvard Medical School, and Matthew D. Zimmerman ’09 were awarded the Philip Hofer Prize this month for assembling artistic and literary collections that best captured the spirit of the prize’s namesake, a former Houghton Library curator.

Leskov, a Lowell House tutor, received first prize for his collection of antique maps of Paris—an assortment consisting of more than 25 maps, a substantial bibliography, and colored photographs of the maps.

“I was always interested in how the city grew and evolved over time.” said Leskove, who said he had compiled many of his maps after studying abroad in Paris during his junior year in college.

To decorate his room, Leskov purchased many maps at live auctions and on Ebay, forming the seed for what would eventually be his award-winning collection.

“The maps showed how the city was depicted in different ways over time,” said Leskov, whose maps spanned from the 15th to the 19th century.

Leskov was awarded $2,000 and will showcase his collection in Lamont Library.

Taking second place and a $1,000 prize was Zimmerman, a Tennessee Valley native who entered his collection of books by authors such as William Faulkner and Robert Penn Warren, writers who were either wrote about the Tennessee Valley or were from the region.

The Philip Hofer Prize, established to foster students’ interest in collecting, was founded in honor of Philip Hofer ’21, the first Curator of the Department of Printing and Graphic Arts in the Houghton Library and Secretary of the Fogg Art Museum.

To enter, students were required to submit a 2,500-word essay describing the meaning and sentimentality of their collections in addition to annotated bibliographies detailing the items.

Hope Mayo, Philip Hofer Curator of Printing and Graphic Arts in Houghton Library, served as the judge of the Philip Hofer Prize and said she looks for a “unifying idea that illustrated the collector’s conception of the material,” and that both prize-winning collections “met the scope and the originality of the idea.”

Both winning collections will be displayed in Lamont Library before Reunion and Commencement Week, Mayo said.