Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be the applicant who was awarded the Louise Seaman Bechtel Fellowship? To be able to spend time in the archives of the Baldwin Library in Gainesville, Florida? To dive elbows-deep into original and archival materials and really dig into the history of children’s literature?
Fortunately, the 2025 Bechtel Fellow has blogged for ALSC and shared the experience. Live vicariously through Aryssa Damron’s posts to get a feel for the depth and breadth of their collections and the power of experience:
- The Future Children’s Librarian – According to Louise Seaman Bechtel
- Before Highlights, There Was Wide Awake
- Saving Stories: My First Week at the Baldwin Library
Or, better yet, you can actively join this illustrious group of past winners.
The Louise Seaman Bechtel Fellowship provides a grant up to $7,500 to a qualified children’s librarian to spend up to four weeks reading and studying at the Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature of the George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida, Gainesville. The Baldwin Library contains a special collection of 130,000 volumes of children’s literature published mostly before 1950. The fellowship is endowed in memory of Louise Seaman Bechtel and Ruth M. Baldwin.
If you find yourself interested, the form for the 2027 Louise Seaman Bechtel Fellowship is open. Applications and all materials are due by October 15, 2026.
Jenny Rosenoff is the current co-chair of the Professional Recognition and ScholarshipsCommittee and wrote this piece on behalf of the committee.
Vook
The Baldwin Library archives sound incredible. For those who’ve visited, what’s the most unexpected item you’ve come across, and how much time do fellows actually get in the collection?
Aryssa Damron
It was an amazing experience! I found original illustration plates for one of the books I was studying, and a lovely little unpublished short story by the author that I still talk about today! The curators even let me see a lovely cross-stitch made in honor of the library’s work and I got to hold a VERY early copy of Little Women. I cannot recommend this enough!