The Dibner Award
The Dibner Award for Excellence in Museum Exhibits was established in 1985, through the generosity of Bern Dibner, to recognize excellence in museums and museum exhibits that interpret the history of technology, industry, and engineering to the general public. Winning exhibits, in addition to being well designed and produced, should raise pertinent historical issues. Artifacts and images should be used in a manner that interests, teaches, and stimulates both the general public and historians. The award consists of a plaque and up to $1,000 to cover expenses for a member of the design team to accept the award at the SHOT awards banquet.
Exhibits are eligible for this award if they have been open to the public for no more than 24 months before the deadline for nominations. The Society especially encourages nominations from local and regional historical societies. Virtual exhibits are not eligible for the award.
Anyone, including the institution or individual responsible for its creation, may nominate an exhibit for the Dibner Award, using the nomination form available here. The completed nomination form should be e-mailed to each member of the Dibner Committee. Deadline for nominations is April 1, except in the case of travelling and short-term exhibits that close before that date; in those cases, nominators must either submit their documents to the committee at least two months in advance of the exhibit's closing date. Nomination documents may not under any circumstances exceed 1 MB or contain anything other than text and static images.
After reviewing nominations, the committee will choose a short list of finalists, giving sole consideration to the evaluation documents submitted. The committee will then arrange for a "live" reviewer to visit each of the short-listed exhibits and write a report. Normally the chair will draw upon recommendations for live reviewers made by the nominator in the nomination document, although s/he may use her/his judgement to assign alternative reviewers as needed, including members of the committee.
2008 Dibner Award Committee
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Karl-Erik Michelsen
South Karelian Institute Lappeenranta University of Technology Laserkatu 10 53581 Lappeenranta Finland kalle.michelsen@lut.fi |
Michael Neufeld
304 Philadelphia Ave. Takoma Park MD 20912-4210 NeufeldM@si.edu |
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Liba Taub
lct1001@cam.ac.uk |
Margaret Vining (chair)
National Museum of American History Smithsonian Institution MRC 620, PO Box 37012 Washington, DC 20013-7012 viningm@si.edu |
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F. Robert van der Linden
National Air and Space Museum PO Box 37012 Room 3311, MRC 312 Washington, D.C. 20013-7012 VanderLindenB@si.edu |
For more information, please contact the committee chair or Amy Bix, SHOT Secretary, 515.294.8469, shot@iastate.edu.
Previous Recipients of the Dibner Award
| 2007 | SS Great Britain Museum, Bristol, England |
| 2006 | “Time Galleries,” the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, England; lead curators David Rooney and Gloria Clifton |
| 2005 | "Locomotion—The National Railway Museum at Shildon," County Durham, England; head curator Janice Murray. Honorable mention: "No.1 Pump Station," Mundaring Weir, Western Australia. |
| 2004 | "Heroes of the Sky: Adventures in Early Flight, 1903-1939," the Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn, Michigan, curator Bob Casey. |
| 2003 | "Show of Force", the Armley Mills Industrial Museum, Leeds, U.K., curated by Neil Dowlan; and "Engenho e Obra: Engineering in Portugal in the 20th Century", a joint effort of the Center for Innovation, Technology and Policy Research, IN+, Instituto Superior Técnico, and the Institute of Contemporary History of the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences, Universidade Nova de Lisboa; directed by Manuel Heitor |
| 2002 | "Shinkansen," National Railway Museum, York, curators Belinda Morris and Richard Gibbon; and "World City," Museum of London, curators Alex Werner and Karen Fielder |
| 2001 | "Writing On Hands: Memory and Knowledge in Early Modern Europe", Trout Gallery at Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania in cooperation with the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington D.C., curators Peter Lukehart and Claire Richter Sherman, and "On Time", National Museum of American History, curator, Carlene Stephens. |
| 2000 | "Universal Machine: Computers and Connections," at the Powerhouse Museum, New South Wales, Australia |
| 1999 | "History Works!", Historic Bethlehem Partnership, Bethlehem, PA, USA and "Watkins' Bethany: The Family, The Farm, The Mills", Watkins Woolen Mill State Historic Site and Park, Lawson, Missouri |
| 1998 | "Fibres, Fabrics, and Fashion", Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, United Kingdom |
| 1997 | "Steel, Stone and Backbone: Building New York's Subways 1900-1925", New York Transit Museum, Brooklyn, New York |
| 1996 | Theodore Roosevelt Dam and Desert Blooms Exhibit, Arizona Historical Society, Pheonix, Arizona |
| 1995 | "The Historical Museum of Bielefeld", Historisches Museum, Bielefeld, Germany |
| 1994 | "The Line of Battle", Wisconsin Veterans Museum, Madison, Wisconsin; The American Computer Museum, Bozeman, Montana; Museo del Vidrio, Monterey, Mexico |
| 1993 | Boott Cotton Mills Museum, Lowell, MA; "The Information Revolution," Herbert H. Dow Museum, Midland, MI; National Science Center, Delhi, India |