Librarian Widener and Co-Author Weiner ’00 Win Highest AALL Award for Publication
The American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) announced Michael Widener and Mark S. Weiner ’00 were the 2018 recipients of the Joseph L. Andrews Legal Literature Award. Widener, the rare book librarian at Yale Law School’s Lillian Goldman Law Library, and Weiner, a professor of law (on leave) at Rutgers Law School, together published Law’s Picture Books: The Yale Law Library Collection, a unique pictorial contribution in the area of legal literature.
The Joseph L. Andrews Legal Literature Award recognizes a significant textual contribution—a book, pamphlet, periodical, website, database, or other publication—to legal literature. Nominations are measured by their creative, evaluative elements, and the extent to which originality and judgment factored into the work’s formation.
“The winners of the 2018 Joseph L. Andrews Legal Literature Award have authored a unique and detailed assessment of the role of illustrations in legal literature,” said AALL President Greg Lambert. “A reflection of innovative collection development by an academic law library, this book is important to our profession and the work of AALL. It defines the role of illustrations or images in increasing our understanding of legal literature.”
“I am deeply honored to receive the 2018 Joseph L. Andrews Legal Literature Award for Law’s Picture Books,” Widener said. “My distinguished co-author and I examined the use of images in legal literature to teach, criticize, explain, and popularize the law, from the Middle Ages to the present. We hope to raise new questions and suggest new answers to old questions.”
“I’m delighted that AALL and our readers have recognized the important role of illustrations in legal literature by awarding us this year’s Joseph L. Andrews Legal Literature Award,” Weiner said. “We wanted to go beyond compiling a collection of law-related artwork or conducting a study in legal iconography. Instead, we provided a thorough analysis of the role of illustrations in everything from textbooks and treatises to statutes, case law, practitioner manuals, and litigation documents. I am honored to accept this award with my co-author.”
The Joseph L. Andrews Legal Literature recipients will be honored at the upcoming 111th AALL Annual Meeting & Conference, to be held in Baltimore from July 14-17, 2018.
About AALL
The American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) is the only national association dedicated to the legal information profession and its professionals. For more information, visit www.aallnet.org.
