A number of major awards, up to a maximum of £2,000 each, are offered annually. Depending on the quantity and quality of applications received in each year, the Society makes around ten awards. Several of these are named awards, and are often used to fund research on particular subjects. Except in the case of the Pantzer Fellowship (£4000) & Scholarship (£1500), applicants need not specify a named award for which they wish to apply. Named awards are assigned by members of the Fellowships & Bursaries sub-committee when selecting successful projects and applicants should be confident that the Society funds projects which seem most interesting rather than those which bear on the themes below.

  • an award associated with the name of the late Barry Bloomfield, sometime President of the Society, ideally but not always used to fund research on the fields in which he worked (including modern English poetry and literature, and Asian bibliography, reflecting his position as Head of the India Office Collections at the British Library).
  • one or more awards associated with the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association – often given to projects on subjects relating to the book trade – which has generously contributed to the fund.
  • the Katharine F. Pantzer Jr Research Scholarship of up to £1,500
  • the Fredson Bowers award of $1,500 funded by the Bibliographical Society of America, often given to projects on American subjects.
  • the Falconer Madan award of £500 in conjunction with the Oxford Bibliographical Society for research undertaken in Oxford libraries or, under certain circumstances, conducted elsewhere upon topics connected with Oxford.

The named awards may be supplemented from the Society’s research funds to a maximum total of £2,000 each.

General Guidelines for Applicants and the application forms for the Major Grants can be downloaded from the page for Application Procedure.

An overview of the Society’s awards schemes can be found at Fellowships and Bursaries.