“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.”  – George Bernard Shaw

The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) is pleased to co-sponsor the second annual Sparky Awards, a contest organized by SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) to recognize the best new short videos illustrating the value of information sharing. It aims to broaden the discussion of access to scholarly research by inviting students to express their views creatively.

The 2008 contest theme is “MindMashup: The Value of Information Sharing.” The Sparky Awards invites contestants to submit videos of two minutes or less that imaginatively portray the benefits of the open, legal exchange of information. Mashup is an expression referring to a song, video, Web site, or software application that combines content from more than one source.

To be eligible, submissions must be publicly available on the Internet – on a Web site or in a digital repository – and available for use under a Creative Commons License. The winner will receive a cash prize of $1,000 along with a Sparky Award statuette. Two runners-up will each receive $500 plus a personalized award certificate. At the discretion of the judges, additional Special Merit Awards may be designated. The award-winning videos will be screened at the January 2009 American Library Association Midwinter Meeting in Denver.

Entries must be received by November 30, 2008. Winners will be announced in January 2009. For full details, see the contest Web site at http://www.sparkyawards.org. ACRL joins the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), Penn Libraries (at the University of Pennsylvania), Students for Free Culture (SFC), and The Student PIRGs in co-sponsoring the contest with SPARC.

View last year’s winners.

First Place
“Share”
http://blip.tv/file/488550
Written and directed by Habib Yazdi, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

First Runner Up
“Pri Vetai: Private Eye”
http://www.blip.tv/file/512440
Directed by Tommy McCauley and Max Silver, Carleton College

Second Runner Up
“An Open Access Manifesto”
http://blip.tv/file/517300
Written and directed by Romel Espinel and Josh Hadro, Pratt Institute