Dating back to 1926, the yearly judging of the Dutch Best erzorgde Boeken is the oldest of it’s kind in Europe. Due to several interruptions, the selection of books published in 2012 is the 54th one.
The somewhat old-fashioned expression best verzorgd (best cared for) has never been dropped because of the fact that what the juries award in the first place, are books, not only their design. Each well-made book is a meeting between content and material, the result of a cooperation between a commissioner (mostly a publisher), a designer and the graphic industry. The role of the various participants is ever-changing.

Each year Dutch publishers, designers and printers submit over 300 books to be judged. The jury consists mostly of a publisher, two designers and a printer or binder, the fifth jury member being alternately a bookseller, a book historian, a museum curator or a writer on the subject.

The rules and criteria by which the jury is tied are kept to a minimum. The members of the jury are invited to select books that are excellent in their physical appearance and in doing this they are to keep an eye on the correlation between form and content. Thus each jury is free to develop their own emphasis, to decide which annual report or desk agenda is to be considered a book and which not, and to select certain books which it considers not to be missed in spite of certain shortcomings.
The selection of the year consists of 33 books at maximum. In the selection trade books are confronted with museum publications, corporate editions with private initiatives.

The books are being exhibited at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and several other places in the Netherlands and
abroad. Recently the number of expositions tends to increase. During the last years the Best Dutch Book Designs have been on show in Stockholm, Ljubljana, Hongkong and Tokyo.
 
More information here