For Immediate Release
June 17, 2008

Media Contact:

Kara Tershel: (202) 662-9500

Robert Oakley

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Georgetown University Law Center Professor and Law Librarian Robert Oakley, who died on September 29, 2007, has been honored by the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) with the 2008 Marian Gould Gallagher Distinguished Service Award.

"The contributions of Bob Oakley have left an indelible mark on the profession and the Association and truly exemplify the very essence of the Gallagher Award," said AALL president Ann T. Fessenden.

Established in 1984, the Marion Gould Gallagher Distinguished Service Award is presented "in recognition of outstanding, extended and sustained service to law librarianship and to AALL." Oakley is the second posthumous recipient of the award.

A national leader in his field, Oakley chaired numerous AALL committees, served on the AALL executive board and was elected president in 2000-2001. He represented the Association's interests in Washington for 18 years, providing testimony and expertise on Capitol Hill.

Oakley joined Georgetown Law in 1982 as law librarian and professor. During his tenure, the Georgetown Law Library was transformed from a collection housed on two floors of an academic building to one that fills the 144,000-square foot Edward Bennett Williams Law Library and the 30,000-square foot John Wolff International and Comparative Law Library. Not only did Oakley expand the collection well beyond one million volumes, making it the fourth largest law library in the country, but he also kept the library on the cutting edge of information technology.

Oakley was an expert on copyright law and wrote and lectured on the subject. He was a member of the Section 108 Study Group, a select committee of copyright experts convened by the Library of Congress and charged with updating the Copyright Act for the digital world. His other scholarly interests included information policy and preservation. In 1998, he received the David J. McCarthy Award for Excellence in Administration and Service at the Law Center.

Before joining the Law Center, Oakley was an associate law librarian at Cornell Law School and the director of the law library and associate professor of law at Boston University School of Law.

 

About Georgetown University Law Center 

Georgetown University Law Center is one of the world's premier law schools. It has the largest full-time faculty in the nation and is pre-eminent in several areas, including constitutional, international, tax and clinical law. Drawing on its Jesuit heritage, it has a strong tradition of public service and is dedicated to the principle that law is but a means, justice is the end. With this principle in mind, Georgetown Law has built an environment that cultivates an exchange of ideas and the pursuit of academic excellence. It brings together an extraordinarily varied group of teachers, scholars and practitioners, as well as an outstanding student body representing more than 60 countries.