Bedard An exhibit catalog produced by the staff of Candler’s Pitts Theology Library has won the American Library Association’s (ALA) PR Xchange Award for Special Programs and Exhibits (Electronic). The PR Xchange Awards recognize the best public relations materials produced by librarians in the past year. View the catalog.

The catalog for the Pitts exhibition “Religion of the Heart: John Wesley and the Legacy of Methodism in America” was one of 400 entries viewed virtually by 15 judges. A collaboration between Curator of Archives and Manuscripts Brandon Wason, who curated the exhibition, and Reference Librarian and Outreach Coordinator Rebekah Bédard, who designed the catalog, the piece also included photography, scanning and editorial work from nearly the entire Pitts staff. 

“This is a significant honor in librarianship,” says Richard Manly “Bo” Adams Jr., director of Pitts Theology Library and Margaret A. Pitts Assistant Professor in the Practice of Theological Bibliography. “I am so proud of this recognition of the incredible work my colleagues are doing.”

“Religion of the Heart” ran from December 11, 2017, to March 9, 2018, and drew upon the library’s extensive Wesleyana holdings to examine Methodism’s rise and development in England, and its establishment and history in the early days of the United States. Materials shown included those connected to John and Charles Wesley’s childhood home, their time at Oxford University, their sojourns to the then-colony of Georgia, and their religious experiences of 1738. The exhibition also explored how preaching, hymns, and organizational structures of Methodism played a role in the movement’s success.

Bédard accepted the award for Pitts at the ALA’s Annual Conference in New Orleans on June 24 (pictured).

View the catalog.