The American Association of Law Libraries named Associate Dean for Information Services Michael G. Chiorazzi as one of four Marian Gould Gallagher Distinguished Service Award winners, the organization's highest honor.
The AALL Awards Program publicly recognizes the achievements of law librarians based on service to the profession and contributions to legal literature and materials. In July, the AALL will present Chiorazzi with the award at the AALL annual meeting in Denver, Colorado.
"We are incredibly proud of the impact Mike has and continues to make at Miami Law," said Nell Jessup Newton, interim dean and visiting professor. "Mike is an innovative leader who understands that library and information services are undergoing tremendous changes. He is a great colleague and mentor who richly deserves this award."
The AALL presents the award to individuals who have completed or is nearing the completion of an active professional career in recognition of a career of outstanding, extended, and sustained service and achievement in law librarianship and to AALL, its committees, special interest sections, chapters, and other entities.
Worked in Law Library as a UM Undergraduate
Chiorazzi, B.A. '76, worked in the law library as an undergraduate student at the University of Miami. He returned in 2019 as associate dean for information services and Dean's Distinguished Director of the Law Library.
Before joining Miami Law, Chiorazzi was associate dean, professor of Information Resources and Library Science at the School of Information, and James & Beverly Rogers Professor of Law at the James E. Rogers College of Law at the University of Arizona. He began his career as a reference librarian and senior instructor in legal research at Duke University School of Law. Subsequently, he served as the deputy director of the Law Library and legal research instructor at the Boston College School of Law.
Chiorazzi's research interests include legal history, issues in law librarianship, and the use of technology in the teaching of legal research. He served as the Legal Reference Services Quarterly editor for 23 years.
Most significantly, the American Association of Law Libraries awarded him the 2007 ' Joseph L. Andrews Bibliographic Award (with Marguerite Most), which recognizes important contributions to legal bibliographical literature for their editing of the book "Pre-Statehood Legal Research: A Guide to the Fifty States, Including the District of Columbia and New York City."
In July 2012, Chiorazzi was inducted into the American Association of Law Libraries Hall of Fame and received the AALL Distinguished Lecture Award in 2013. He presented his paper, "Mentoring, Teaching and Training the Next Generation of Law Librarians: Past and Present as Prologue to the Future," at the annual meeting of AALL in Seattle, Washington. The Law Library Journal published the paper.
The AALLS’s Distinguished Service Award was established in 1984 to recognize extended and sustained service to law librarianship, exemplary service to the association, or contributions to the professional literature. The award was renamed the Marian Gould Gallagher Distinguished Service Award in 1990 in recognition of Gallagher's contributions to AALL and the advancement of the profession of law librarianship. She was a law librarian for over 50 years.
“This award means the world to me for many reasons, not the least of which is Marian Gallagher was my teacher and mentor in law librarianship,” said Chiorazzi. “I was in her last class before she retired in 1981. She is second only to my parents in forming me as a professional. And, my work here at Miami has completed another circle: I worked as a work-study student in the mid-70’s here at Miami Law and will retire from here this summer.”
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