| Year | Editor-in-Chief | Book | Publisher |
| 2009 | Greenwood Electronic Media | Pop Culture Universe
(Online Database—pop.greenwood.com) | Greenwood Publishing Group |
| 2008 | John B. Hattendorf | Oxford Encyclopedia of Maritime History | Oxford University Press |
| 2007 | Fred Skolnik | Encyclopaedia Judaica | Thomson Gale |
| 2007 Honorable Mention | Susan B. Carter, et al. | Historical Statistics of the United States: Earlier Times to the Present: Millennial Edition | Cambridge University Press |
| 2006 | Ian Aitken | Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film | Routledge/Taylor & Francis |
| 2006 Honorable Mention | Suzanne Oboler and Deena J. González | Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos & Latinas in the United States | Oxford University Press |
| 2005 | H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison | Oxford Dictionary of National Biography | Oxford University Press |
| 2004 | Solomon H. Katz | Encyclopedia of Food and Culture | Charles Scribner's Sons |
| 2004 Honorable Mention | S. Lillian Kremer | Holocaust Literature: An Encyclopedia of Writers and Their Work | Routledge |
| 2003 | Bruno Nettl and Ruth M. Stone; founding editors, James Porter and Timothy Rice. | Garland Encyclopedia of World Music | Routledge |
| 2002 | Donald B. Redford | Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt | Oxford University Press |
| 2002 Honorable Mention | Stanley Sadie; executive editor, John Tyrrell | New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians | Grove’s Dictionaries |
| 2001 | Anne Commire | Women in World History | Gale Group |
| 2001 Honorable Mention | David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler | Encyclopedia of the American Civil War | ABC-CLIO |
| 2001 Honorable Mention | Jay A. Siegel | Encyclopedia of Forensic Sciences | Academic Press |
| 2000 | Paul F. Grendler | Encyclopedia of the Renaissance | Scribner's |
| 2000 Honorable Mention | John G. Webster | Wiley Encyclopedia of Electrical and Electronics Engineering | Wiley |
| 2000 Honorable Mention | Samuel A. Floyd, Jr. | International Dictionary of Black Composers | Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers |
| 2000 Honorable Mention | Alan Davidson | Oxford Companion to Food | Oxford University Press |
| 1999 | John A. Garraty & Mark C. Carnes | American National Biography | Oxford University Press |
| 1999 Honorable Mention | Selma Jeanne Cohen | International Encyclopedia of Dance | Oxford University Press |
| 1999 Honorable Mention | Edward Craig | Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy | Routledge |
| 1999 Honorable Mention | Saul B. Cohen | Columbia Gazetteer of the World | Columbia University Press |
| 1998 | Paula E. Hyman and Deborah Dash Moore | Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia | Routledge |
| 1998 Honorable Mention | John Middleton | Encyclopedia of Africa: South of the Sahara | Charles Scribner's Sons |
| 1998 Honorable Mention | Ruth M. Stone | Garland Encyclopedia of World Music: Africa | Garland |
| 1998 Honorable Mention | | Encyclopedia Judaica on CD-ROM | Judaica Multimedia |
| 1997 | Jane Turner | Dictionary of Art | Macmillan Publishers |
| 1997 Honorable Mention | Jack Salzman, David Lionel Smith, Cornel West | Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History | Macmillan Library Reference |
| 1997 Honorable Mention | | The Middle Ages: An Encyclopedia for Students | Charles Scribner's Sons |
| 1997 Honorable Mention | Barbara A. Tenenbaum | Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture | Charles Scribner’s Sons |
| 1996 | Jack M. Sasson | Civilizations of the Ancient Near East | Macmillan / Charles Scribner's Sons |
| 1996 Honorable Mention | Warren Thomas Reich | Encyclopedia of Bioethics | Macmillan |
| 1996 Honorable Mention | Kenneth T. Jackson | Encyclopedia of New York City | Yale University Press |
| 1995 | Leonard W. Levy, Louis Fisher | Encyclopedia of the American Presidency | Simon & Schuster |
| 1995 Honorable Mention | Kurt Gänzl | Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre | Schirmer Books |
| 1994 | Darlene Clark Hine | Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia | Carlson Publishers |
| 1994 Honorable Mention | Mary Kupiec Cayton, Elliott J. Gorn, Peter W. Williams | Encyclopedia of American Social History | Charles Scribner's Sons |
| 1993 | Edgar F. Borgatta | Encyclopedia of Sociology | Macmillan Publishers |
| 1993 Honorable Mention | Tom McArthur | Oxford Companion to the English Language | Oxford University Press |
| 1992 | Robert J. Mason and Mark T. Mattson | Atlas of United States Environmental Issues | Macmillan Publishing |
| 1992 Honorable Mention | Eric Foner and John A. Garraty | The Reader's Companion to American History | Houghton Mifflin |
| 1991 | Israel Gutman | Encyclopedia of the Holocaust | Macmillan Publishing |
| 1991 Honorable Mention | William H. Gerdts | Art Across America: Two Centuries of Regional Painting, 1710-1920 | Abbeville Press |
| 1990 | Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris | Encyclopedia of Southern Culture | University North Carolina Press |
| 1990 Honorable Mention | Joseph R. Strayer | Dictionary of the Middle Ages | Scribner |
| 1989 | James Paul Allen and Eugene James Turner | We the People: An Atlas of America's Diversity | Macmillan Publishing |
| 1988 | Mircea Eliade | Encyclopedia of Religion | Macmillan |
| 1987 | Leonard W. Levy | Encyclopedia of the American Constitution | Macmillan Publishing |
| 1986 | Torsten Husén and T. Neville Postlethwaite | International Encyclopedia of Education: Research and Studies | Pergamon Press |
| 1985 | | Wilsonline | H. W. Wilson Company |
| 1984 | Alastair Couper | Times Atlas of the Oceans | Van Nostrand Reinhold Co. |
| 1983 | | Congressional Information Service | |
| 1982 | Stanley Sadie | New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians | Grove’s Dictionaries of Music |
| 1981 | Charles Coulston Gillispie | Dictionary of Scientific Biography | Scribner |
| 1980 | No Award | | |
| 1979 | Warren Reich | Encyclopedia of Bioethics | Free Press |
| 1978 | Benjamin B. Wolman | International Encyclopedia of Psychiatry, Psychology, Psychoanalysis and Neurology | Aesculapius Publishers by Van Nostrand Reinhold Co. |
| 1977 | Lester J. Cappon | Atlas of Early American History: The Revolutionary Era, 1760-1790 | Princeton University Press for the Newberry Library and the Institute of Early American History and Culture |
| 1976 | No Award | | |
| 1975 | New England Board of Higher Education | for establishing NASIC, Northeast Academic Science Information Center, a regional experiment in the brokerage of information services. | |
