DSS Library Wins ALA Choice Award

Each year in January, Choice magazine recognizes a short list of the best academic titles from among the 7,000 or so reviewed in the previous year. Among the winners of the January 2008 awards is BYU's Dead Sea Scrolls Electronic Library, which was produced by the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship and published by Brill Academic Press. This electronic database contains searchable texts of all of the published non-biblical scrolls. High resolution images of the scrolls and a complete English translation accompany the texts. The latest version of the database, published at the end of 2006, is the culmination of 10 years of work by the Maxwell Institute and represents the fruits of more than 50 years of research in publishing and translating the Dead Sea scrolls. The database was edited by Professor Emanuel Tov of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and produced by Professor Noel B. Reynolds and Kristian S. Heal of the Maxwell Institute. Students and faculty at BYU may enjoy the learning and research opportunities provided by the database thanks to a special arrangement that the Maxwell Institute worked out with Brill that allows for the Institute to distribute copies of the database on campus at little or no cost.

Choice magazine is published by the American Library Association and is distributed to more than 35,000 libraries, academics, and administrators each year. The Outstanding Academic Title awards are conferred based on ratings in six criteria, including academic excellence and value to undergraduate students.