Encouraging new scholars in bibliography.

The New Scholars Program of the Bibliographical Society of America seeks to encourage early-career scholars, graduate students, librarians, booksellers, and collectors in bibliography (defined as any research that deals with the creation, production, publication, distribution, reception, transmission, and subsequent history of textual artifacts). Each year, BSA invites three new scholars to give a 15-minute presentation on their research and offers an honorarium of $1,000. This year, the presentations will be virtual. The application deadline is September 8, 2020. Further details here.

BYU's annotated bibliography of academic mysteries.

Florence Converse,
1921

As the Law & Humanities blog points out, Brigham Young University Library has produced "Murder at BYU: A Finding Guide to and Annotated Bibliography of Murder Mysteries in the Harold B. Lee Library at BYU Involving Universities, Colleges, Professors and/or Students." It has expected entries (e.g., Dorothy L. Sayers's Gaudy Night, 1935) and lesser known ones (e.g., Florence Converse's Into the Void, 1926). There are drawbacks, however, in the bibliography's reliance on dated sources and absence of periodical references such as Clues and Journal of Popular Culture. Although the bibliography states, "No infor[mation] on author" regarding Converse, an ad for Into the Void in 11 Sept. 1926 issue of the Living Age reveals that Converse (1871–1967) was born in New Orleans, was an assistant editor at the Atlantic Monthly, and lived in Wellesley (the milieu of Into the Void is rumored to be Wellesley College). A graduate of Wellesley College (BS, 1893; MA, 1903) who wrote a history of her alma mater, she also was a poet and playwright who authored several novels such as the mystery Sphinx (1931).

Mysteries by the Bay.

Just in time for summer reading: The University of California-Berkeley's Bancroft Library has posted an extensive "Golden Gate Mysteries: A Bibliography of Crime Fiction Set in the San Francisco Bay Area." There's also a neat extra, "The Big Shake: The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake in Mystery Fiction."