Marvin R. Anderson, Leah Chanin and Francis Robert “Bob” Doyle, three longtime and respected law librarians and AALL members, have been selected to receive the 2003 Marian Gould Gallagher Distinguished Service Award for their dedication to the profession and AALL.

State Librarian, Community Contributor
Marvin R. Anderson retired in 2002 after serving 22 years as the Minnesota state law librarian -- leaving an indelible impression on law librarianship and his local community.

Anderson’s foray into community outreach and volunteerism started early. He was a graduate of Morehouse College and Hastings School of Law when he accepted a two-year appointment in the Peace Corps in 1966 to Senegal, West Africa, where he organized a fishing cooperative. After returning to the United States in 1968, he worked as an attorney for the Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights.

Anderson received his M.L.S. degree from the University of Minnesota in 1977. He was appointed the state law librarian of the Minnesota State Law Library in St. Paul, Minn., in 1980. Among his achievements, he established the County Law Library Program in Minnesota and a partnership with the Department of Corrections to provide reference service and legal information to prisoners.

Anderson also contributed to his community. He organized the “Everybody Wins” reading program, which pairs volunteer legal practitioners with elementary school students at the Benjamin E. Mays Magnet school in St. Paul, Minn. Judicial and state agency employees -- including judges -- read to second-grade students once a week. For his efforts, Anderson received the 1999 Spirit of Law Librarianship Award and a community service award issued by Minneapolis television station KARE-TV. In recognition of his many gifts to the community, St. Paul Mayor Randy Kelly declared Sept. 9 “Marvin Anderson Day” when Anderson retired in September 2002.

Anderson has been active in AALL, including stints as chair of the State, Court and County Law Libraries Special Interest Section and president of the Minnesota Association of Law Libraries. He was chair of the Local Advisory Committee for the 2001 AALL Annual Meeting in Minneapolis. Although retired, he recently accepted the challenge of spearheading AALL’s campaign to raise $100,000 to match West’s contribution to the George A. Strait Minority Scholarship Endowment fund.

A Scholar and an Advocate
Leah Chanin has had a long and varied career in academic law libraries and legal scholarship.

Before embarking on her career as a law librarian, Chanin practiced law from 1958-64 in Macon, Ga., for the firm of Kenmore and Culpepper.

She then became director of the law library and professor of law at the Furman Smith Law Library of the Mercer University School of Law in Macon, Ga., in 1964; she retired from Mercer in 1992.

To be closer to her family, Chanin moved to Washington, D.C. in 1992. She served as director of the law library and distinguished professor of law at the University of the District of Columbia Law School Library from 1992-96.

After Chanin left the University of the District of Columbia Law School Library, she took over as head of public services at the Howard University Law Library in 1996 until she retired from the profession in January 2001.

Georgia law librarians and legal practitioners alike respect Chanin for her Guide to Georgia Legal Research and Legal History (1990) and her contributions to Specialized Legal Research (1987). She is regarded by Georgia practitioners as an expert on legal ethics, having been a member of the Georgia Code of Professional Responsibility Commission. She also published articles in Law Library Journal and the Georgia State Bar Journal. After she moved to Washington, D.C., she edited and co-authored Legal Research in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia (1995 and 2000).

Although well respected as a legal scholar, Chanin has been a devoted advocate of law libraries and librarians. She was an active member in AALL, serving first on the Executive Board and then as president in 1982-83. She was also president of the Southeastern Chapter of the American Association of Law Libraries from 1970-72.

“Leah Chanin, a loving wife, a dedicated mother, an accomplished librarian, an exemplary teacher/scholar, an admirable leader, a warm friend, [is] an unquestionably deserving recipient of the award so exemplified by Marian Gallagher,” wrote Roger Jacobs, director of the law library and associate dean and professor of law at Notre Dame Law School in Notre Dame, Ind., in a letter supporting Chanin’s nomination.

Up the Ladder to Leadership
The Awards Committee also selected Francis Robert “Bob” Doyle as a recipient of the Gallagher award for his contributions to law librarianship throughout a distinguished career of more than 45 years.

Doyle has been director of the law library at Loyola University Chicago since 1978. He came to his position after working his way up the ladder from his first job, shelving books at the Harvard Law Library in 1955. Realizing the requirements of law librarianship and the benefits of higher education, Doyle earned his B.A. degree in political science from Boston University in 1963; his J.D. degree from the New England College of Law in 1972; and his M.L.S. degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1977 while working at the Boalt Hall School of Law.

When he came to Loyola, Doyle expanded and developed the collection and moved it twice. By increasing the library’s funding by $900,000 over nine years, Doyle was able to improve the library’s basic collection and develop the health law and child law collections -- two specialized areas of law that Loyola Law Library is now renowned for.

Doyle has served as mentor to generations of law librarians and law library directors by actively participating in law librarianship organizations. He was a co-founder of the Chicago Legal Academic System, a consortium of academic law libraries in Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana. He also served as president of the Chicago Association of Law Libraries and the Conference of Jesuit Law School Libraries. AALL has benefited from Doyle’s leadership, too. He has served on numerous committees throughout the years, including the Index to Periodicals Committee and the Nominations Committee.

Doyle has written and edited many articles in scholarly law and library journals but is best known for his work as co-author of Searching the Law (1987) and author of Searching the Law -- the States (1989 and subsequent editions; the 4th edition will be published this year).

About the Award
The Marian Gould Gallagher Distinguished Service Award recognizes extended and sustained service to law librarianship, contributions to professional literature and exemplary service to AALL. Established in 1984, the award was renamed in 1990 to honor its first recipient, a former law librarian and professor of law at the University of Washington and AALL president from 1954-55. The 2003 Marian Gould Gallagher Distinguished Service Award Subcommittee members consisted of Mary Ann Parker, Deanna Barmakian, Marjorie Crawford, Charles Dyer and Sally Wambold.

The Marian Gould Gallagher Distinguished Service Awards will be presented July 14 at the Association Luncheon during the 2003 AALL Annual Meeting and Conference in Seattle.