Renee D. Chapman Memorial Award

The Renee D. Chapman Memorial Award for Outstanding Contributions in Technical Services Law Librarianship is presented at the annual meeting of the American Association of Law Libraries to an individual or group in recognition of achievement in an area of technical services, for services to the Association, or for outstanding contributions to the professional literature. Nominations for the award are solicited from November through February.

Factors considered in selecting the recipients of the Award include such things as the publishing, presenting, or sharing of innovative techniques or research, analysis or commentary; the development of software, hardware, or other mechanisms that significantly enhance access to collections; and the contribution of service to the Technical Services SIS as a whole. Achievements may be in the area of acquisitions, cataloging and classification, materials processing, preservation, automation, or technical services administration.

All members of AALL are invited to submit names for consideration by the TS-SIS Awards Committee. Nominations must include the candidate's full name, title and current firm, company or institution name, and email and institution address; or, if retired, name and last previous place of work and home address. Someone other than the nominee must sign the letter of nomination. The letter should accompany a list of projects, programs, or publications of the nominee and should describe the nominee's work with respect to qualification for the Award. A resume including a list of projects, programs, or publications of the nominee is to accompany the letter. Additional letters of recommendation are encouraged.

Nomination Deadline

Renee Chapman Award nominations are being solicited and will be accepted through February 1, 2023.

All materials in support of a nomination should be sent to:

Keena Hilliard
Reference and Metadata Librarian
Temple University Beasley School of Law
1719 North Broad Street
Philadelphia, PA 19122

For further information, contact Keena Hilliard at (215)204-3473 or keena@temple.edu.

See also the Chapman Award section in the TS-SIS Handbook.

Past Recipients

View past recipients of the Renee Chapman Award.

About Renee Chapman

Renee was killed in an auto accident on March 19, [1990], while returning to her home near Ithaca, N.Y. from a trip to the Midwest. She had been Catalog Management Librarian at Cornell University Library since fall 1989. Renee had been a member of AALL since 1975, and had served as chair of the Technical Services SIS in 1988/89. She was also a member of the Cataloging and Classification Standing Committee of TS-SIS. In addition, she was an active member of the Online Bibliographic Services SIS, chaired its RLIN Standing Committee from 1983 to 1985 and served on its Executive Board in 1986/87. Renee came to Cornell from the Charles B. Sears Law Library, SUNY/Buffalo, where she had served as Head, Technical Services from 1986 to 1989. Prior to that she was Head Cataloging Librarian at the University of Iowa Law Library (1981-1986) and Technical Services Librarian at Drake University Law Library (1975-1981). Renee was well known to all of us as a dedicated librarian who was always at the forefront of her profession, but also as a warm and caring friend. We will all cherish our memories of her, especially those informal moments at the convention when she showed us her wonderful sense of humor. In addition to her professional accomplishments, she was also an enthusiastic scholar, interested in women’s labor history. She had received her M.A. in History at SUNY/Buffalo in May 1989 and was working toward her Ph.D. at Cornell at the time of her death. A scholarship fund has been established by her husband Terry, to be used for the support of a female graduate student in history. Contributions to the fund should be made to: Renee Chapman Memorial Fund, c/o History Department, McGraw Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853. Renee will be missed by all who knew and worked with her, as we continue to be inspired by her example.

From: Technical Services Law Librarian, vol. 15, no. 4 (May 1990), p. 28.