University of Richmond's Coggins earns highest honor from American Association of Law Library Hall of Fame

The American Association of Law Library Hall of Fame will award the Marian Gould Gallagher Distinguished Service Award, its highest honor, to Tim Coggins, associate dean for Library and Information Services at Richmond School of Law.

“This award recognizes an individual who has completed or is nearing completion of an active professional career for outstanding, extended, and sustained service to law librarianship, to the Association, or for contributions to the professional literature,” wrote Frank G. Houdek, chair of the AALL Awards Committee. “Needless to say, Tim Coggins more than qualifies on all counts.”

As associate dean, Coggins directs the Muse Law Library, a resource center that is home to more than 430,000 volumes. During his tenure he has led efforts to bolster collections and improve the physical space, all the while managing major shifts in technology and the increasingly seamless integration of library staff into the classroom. Coggins will retire this summer.

Coggins joined the Richmond Law team in 1997 as director of the law library and associate professor. He became professor in 2003 and associate dean in 2004. Prior to joining the Richmond Law faculty, Coggins worked at the University of Alabama School of Law and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law.

“Tim is one of the finest library directors in the country and has built a truly outstanding law library for us here,” said Wendy Perdue, dean of the law school. “His commitment to excellence leaves a lasting legacy and he is a model for library directors everywhere.”

“Receiving the Gallagher Award from the American Association of Law Libraries is an incredible honor, one that I will treasure always,” said Coggins. “I was able to contribute professionally and to make a difference regarding equitable access to legal information because Dean Perdue, other Richmond law school deans, and my law library colleagues at Richmond supported and valued my efforts.”

Coggins will receive the award at AALL Annual Meeting and Conference in Philadelphia in July. This is not his first honor from the AALL. He has also received four presidential certificates of merit from the organization, and in 2004 was the recipient of the Frederick Hicks Award for outstanding service in academic law librarianship. In 2011, Coggins was inducted into the AALL Hall of Fame.

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