Home ›

At My Library Creative Essay Contest

Submit your essays for a chance to win $350!

Contest Guidelines  |  Frequently Asked Questions

@ your library is seeking an original, creative essay for its first ever At My Library Creative Essay Contest. The winning essay will illustrate the participant’s experience at their local library and demonstrate the fundamental spirit and importance of American libraries. The Grand Prize Winner will receive $350 and a People’s Choice Award Winner will receive $100! The top ten finalists will have their essays published on the atyourlibrary.org Web site. To view submissions and cast your vote, visit: http://www.atyourlibrary.org/essay-submissions.

Here are some guidelines to get you started on your essay:

  • The essay must describe your personal experience at a library and include the name of your local library.
  • Text essays should be between 150-600 words.
  • Multimedia essays should be between one to two minutes long.
  • Make sure to submit text essays in a Word Document.
  • All multimedia essays must be first uploaded to your own YouTube account before submitting a URL to the essay for the contest.
    • If you need help getting started on your essay, here are some things to think about:
  • What do you, personally, use the library for the most? What are the elements of your library that mean the most to you?
  • What is the importance of libraries to you?
  • How do the various resources provided at your library—books, music, movies, downloadable media, free Wi-Fi, performances, workshops, knowledge, etc.—benefit or affect your lifestyle?
  • What do you think the future of libraries will look like?

We want to emphasize that these are just suggestions and can be interpreted a number of different ways. The only requirement as far as the actual essay itself is that it describes your personal experience at the library and you must include the name of the library. The essay can even be a music video; presented in a way you feel gets the message across. This contest is about you expressing your own creativity as much as it is about showing your love for libraries. We can’t wait to see what you have in mind.

Contest Instructions

  1. Express yourself by putting together an original and creative essay that tells the story of your experience at the library. Please include the name of the libraries where the experiences took place.
  2. Submit your text essay or URL to your multimedia essay to us at atyourlibrary@yahoo.com before December 7, 2009. (See below for Submission Criteria.)
  3. Become a member of atyourlibrary.org.
  4. To monitor the progress of the Essay Competition, check out contest at http://www.atyourlibrary.org/essay-submissions or our blog.


For contest details including eligibility, terms and conditions, please read the Official Rules.

What’s Next?

  1. The People’s Choice Award will be open for voting on October 30, 2009 at http://www.atyourlibrary.org/essay-submissions. Voting is worldwide, open to everyone, and ends December 14, 2009. To vote, just become a member of atyourlibrary.org, and use the ranking function to vote for your favorite essay!
  2. The submission period for ALL essays ends on December 7, 2009. An internal team for @ your library, the public campaign of the American Library Association, will conduct the judging to select the Grand Prize Winner.
  3. The Grand Prize Winner and People’s Choice Award Winners will be announced December 21, 2009.


Submission Criteria
You can submit more than one unique essay, no more than two, but only one submission can qualify to the second round.
What to include in your e-mail:

  • If your essay is text piece, please submit it in a Word Document that is a minimum of 150 words and no longer than 600 words.
  • If your essay is a multimedia piece, it should be a minimum of one minute long and no longer than two minutes. You must upload it to your own YouTube account and e-mail the URL of the multimedia piece to be considered for the contest.
  • Name of your essay
  • Full Name
  • E-mail
  • Mailing Address
  • Phone Number
  • atyourlibrary.org username (You’ll need this to vote for the People’s Choice Award. Don’t have one? It’s free to sign up.)
  • Date of Birth
  • How you heard about the contest


Submissions must include all the requested information. Entries missing information will be deemed incomplete and ineligible until all requested information is submitted. Make sure your contact information submitted along with your Entry is active and valid as this is the only means of contacting the finalists. Don’t forget, the submission deadline is 11:59 PM Central Standard Time (CST) on Monday, December 7, 2009.

If you have any further questions, comments or concerns about this contest, please contact us:

 

Creative Commons License