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John Burroughs Medal for Natural History
Award Winning Books in the Sowell and the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library Collection Writing:

John Burroughs was one of our country's finest writers on the observable world of nature.  The first John Burroughs Medal, named in his honor, was awarded in 1926 for William Beebe's Pheasants of the World, while the most recent award went to Elisabeth Bailey Tova for The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating.  Seventy-five other writers have received this prestigious award, including Sowell Collection writers Barry Lopez for Of Wolves & Men (1979), Gary Paul Nabhan for Gathering in the Desert (1986) and David Quammen for The Song of the Dodo (1997).  

A distinguished judging panel awards the medal to books displaying high literary quality, firsthand fieldwork, and scientific accuracy.  Judges may consider not only the nominated book, but also the author's entire publication history.  The Southwest Collection and the Sowell Collection have been able to acquire 56 of these significant natural history books, enabling students to follow this literary genre's growth.