ILAB proudly supports the David Ruggles Prize - encouraging and supporting young book collectors of colour

Founded in 2021, the prize is named in honour of David Ruggles, a groundbreaking 19th-century abolitionist, publisher, and Underground Railroad conductor, who opened the first Black-owned bookstore in the United States.

The prize celebrates collecting in its broadest form, welcoming not only traditional hardcovers and paperbacks but also zines, comic books, graphic novels, contemporary book art, and other creative interpretations of the book. The aim is to spotlight passionate young collectors whose collections reflect vision, dedication, and personal meaning—regardless of their monetary value.

Each year, three cash prizes are awarded: a $1,000 grand prize, $500 second prize, and $250 third prize. Entry is open to individuals aged 35 and under, anywhere in the world.

ILAB is proud to support this important initiative, which aligns with our mission to foster bibliophilia, inclusivity, and the future of collecting across generations and cultures.

Looking at the winners of the 2024 prize

Jordan Ross

$1,000 grand prize

Ross has been collecting for ten years, and his decade-long effort to build a "Black Collegiate Textbooks and Histories" collection is paying off. Ross provides not only a snapshot of African American history textbooks in use during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but also the increasingly scarce histories of the HBCUs that taught with those same textbooks. It started in Fall 2014 with a visit to the campus bookstore at Morehouse College, where he had just started his first year. He asked staff for a history of the college, only to learn that the most recent one was some fifty years out of print. He walked up the street to Spelman College, asked for the same thing, and learned that its history, too, was out of print. Now numbering more than 200 books, Ross' distinctive engagement with a print culture specific to HBCUs aims to preserve these vanishing histories. While many of the judges' decisions are hard, this one was easy. One judge's comment sums it up well: "Man, Jordan just really ran away with it!"

Nubia Lateefa Baraka

$500 second prize

Unable to find in her local library the work of historians John Henrik Clarke and Yosef Ben-Jochannan, Baraka quickly realized that she would have to request from another library just about everything she wanted to read. So she set about building her own collection of largely vintage, and invariably hard-to-get, Black literature and memorabilia, "works that have fallen between the cracks and been forgotten." Her collection now includes more than 600 books and carries a name that reflects its community-driven mission, her desire to make available the otherwise unobtainable. The judges were only too happy to reward Baraka's participation in—as the collector herself puts it—"the legacy of independent Black preservation and memory work." "Love the outreach portion," one judge said, still more evidence that many of the best book collections are assembled for use.

Elvira (Vera) Jiā Xī Mancini

$250 third prize

There's something undeniably irresistible about Mancini's global Pride and Prejudice collection. When just starting middle school, her father gave her his own childhood copy of the Jane Austen novel (in English). Some time later, Mancini found herself in France and picked up a copy in French. When her father's work began demanding international travel, he'd always ask Vera if he could bring home a souvenir. Her invariable request? "A copy of Pride and Prejudice in the local language." More than ten years later, some copies she has collected herself, while others came from friends and family on the move. Keep in mind, however, that there's one critical condition: The book must be purchased in person. More than a portrait of Pride and Prejudice's international presence, this is a collection that tells the many personal stories of international travel. The judges loved it. "I really liked the justification for focusing on a single title," one said. And for good reason. Mancini's justification demands patience and rewards method. She offers a potent corrective to an age of effortless international online shopping.

To learn more about the prize, visit: https://rugglesprize.org/