Richard A. Danner, Senior Associate Dean for Information Technology and Research Professor of Law at Duke University School of Law Library is the 2002 recipient of the coveted Frederick Charles Hicks Award for Outstanding Contributions to Academic Law Librarianship. The Hicks Award is presented annually by the Academic Law Libraries Special Interest Section. The award recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions to academic law librarianship through sustained efforts in research, publication and other activities that improve and advance law librarianship. The award is named in honor of Frederick Charles Hicks, the first great American law librarian scholar who was also the first academic law librarian to serve as president of AALL.
Dick Danner’s career exemplifies the very best in academic law librarianship. Over the past twenty years his leadership and activities related to academic law librarianship have been diverse and continuous, and in the forefront of the profession. He has been active as an author, speaker and participant in AALL activities, serving as president in 1989-90 and editor of the Law Library Journal from 1984 to 1994. He has been active in other organizations affecting academic libraries such as IALL, and he was recently elected to the Executive Board of AALS, only the second librarian to hold this position.
Prof. Danner has written extensively about the core issues of law librarianship in several books and more than thirty articles. He is also a highly respected speaker who has participated in countless programs and workshops during the past twenty years. He has an uncanny ability to see the vision of the future and at the same time, help librarians work effectively in the present. His Strategic Planning: A Law Library Management Tool for the 90s and Beyond has helped many librarians work solidly in the present to achieve future goals. In 1994 he served on the Special Committee on the Renaissance of Law Librarianship in the Information Age and edited the Final Report of that committee, Toward a Renaissance of Law Librarianship. Prof. Danner’s contributions to academic law librarianship have been sustained throughout his career and critical to the advancement of the profession. The ALL-SIS is proud to honor Prof. Danner with this award. The award was presented July 23, 2002, during the ALL-SIS reception at Barry University in Orlando, Florida at the annual AALL convention.
Prof. Danner joins previous Hicks honorees Penny Hazelton of the University of Washington (2000) and Frank Houdek of Southern Illinois University (2001). Victoria Trotta of Arizona State University chaired the ALL-SIS Awards Committee, which also included James Duggan, Ed Edmonds, Sally Holterhoff and Diana Osbaldiston.