The Rare Book and Manuscript Library of the University’s main library is easy to miss.

Tucked away on the third floor, and hidden behind imposing doors that lock behind visitors when they enter and must be unlocked to leave, the quiet library houses links to the past. To browse the stacks of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library is to lose oneself to history. There is a feeling of great age, value and mystique. There could be anything there, buried in a forgotten nook, overlooked by countless people, only to be discovered now. A literary Grail might await.

It is fitting, then, that the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, and its resident book collecting organization, The No. 44 Society, play host to the second annual Book Collecting Contest. This contest pits student book collectors against one another in a competition to assemble the most complete, well thought-out and creative book collections.

There are two separate competitions for undergraduate and graduate students, who will be awarded the Harris Fletcher Book Collecting Award and the T.W. Baldwin Prize for Book Collecting, respectively.

First prize in each category is a $250 award and a trip to New York City for Bibliography Week (January 22-26, 2008), a Mecca of sorts for organizations devoted to book collecting and book history. Winners will also receive an invitation to a special reception at one of the country’s largest book collecting organizations, The Grolier Club.

Second prize in the contest is a one-year subscription to Fine Books and Collecting. Last year’s winner, Adam Doskey, won with a collection of writings and criticisms of the works of English poet and novelist Malcolm Lowry, the author of “Under the Volcano.”

“Students can be book collectors and not even know it,” said Valerie Hotchkiss, head of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library. “If you happen to like one particular author or genre, you may have a collection and not even realize it.”

She cited cookbooks, science fiction collections and comic book collections as the sort of noneducational or “literary” collections that stand an equal chance of winning the contest.

“When people think of this sort of collection, they think of Shakespeare and Dickens,” Hotchkiss said. “We’re here to encourage student book collectors of all types, and of all interests.”

Hotchkiss founded the No. 44 Society last year as a way to bring book collectors together in the same way as the book collecting contest. The title is from Mark Twain’s last novel, “No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger,” which is the only required reading for the monthly collective, which meets in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at 4 p.m. on the first Wednesday of the month.

“Anyone can join the No. 44 Society,” Hotchkiss said. “We have members (ranging) from Urbana High School students, to an 80-year-old professor emeritus, to a judge who drives up to 70 miles to come.”

Each month the group meets to discuss their collections, as well as offer insight to students and locals who might be interested in getting involved in book collecting.

“I think the No. 44 Society is a great way for people to get information on book collecting,” said Christopher Cook, the rare book cataloguing project manager and University alumnus.

Cook’s collection of over 300 works dealing with the work of Dante Alighieri, author of “The Divine Comedy,” finished second place in last year’s competition, prior to his graduation in Library Science.

“The contest gives a great opportunity to expand the scope of your collection and get the opinions of other book-collectors,” he said.

The collections are judged based on a wide degree of factors, including the scope of the collection and the statement that the student makes on why they feel their collection is significant to modern culture.

“This contest is important because it fosters the awareness of the role of print in the culture of modern society,” said Bruce Swan, the classics librarian of the University Library, and a previous judge of the contest. “That’s why the competition is open to everyone. There’s still time to enter, and I believe that this contest will highlight the intellectual curiosities of today’s collectors and their personal interests.”

The deadline for submissions is April 3. For more information, visit www.library.uiuc.edu/rbx.