The Prize is conferred in a ceremony in the Great Hall of the Jefferson Building, attended by American political leaders to dramatize America's commitment to these areas of human inquiry.
Such disciplines include history, philosophy, politics, anthropology, sociology, religion, criticism in the arts and humanities, and linguistics.
In order to ensure consideration of as wide a pool of candidates as possible, in 2001, the Librarian of Congress solicited nominations for the Kluge Prize from a broad range of individuals knowledgeable about the humanities and social sciences in colleges, universities, and research institutions across the globe, as well as from independent scholars and writers.
Based upon extensive research and further recommendations, the director of the Office of Scholarly Programs prepared a list of candidates for the Librarian's consideration in 2003.
In addition to soliciting numerous outside reviews for each of these scholars, the Librarian called upon an expert staff of curators in the Library to conduct extensive biographical and bibliographical research as well as to gather published reviews and discussions of each candidate's work, prepare abstracts of translations of key articles from material available only in foreign languages, and provide a brief characterization and evaluation of the scholarly corpus of the candidate.