The Virginia Till Lemmon Award of the New Jersey Law Librarians Association (NJLLA) is awarded annually to a Rutgers School of Communication & Information student. Candidates’ names will be submitted to the NJLLA Grants and Awards Committee Chair by the MI Department Chair through its scholarship committee
The criteria for selection are outstanding performance in the Master of Information Program and a demonstrated interest in law librarianship. The amount of the award is $600.
The Virginia Till Lemmon Award is given in honor of a founding member of NJLLA who retired as a tenured librarian from Rutgers University Law School Library.
Virginia Till Lemmon was a lawyer and law librarian for many years. She earned her JD at Marshall Wythe School of Law at the College of William and Mary and her MLS from Columbia University. Her first job out of law school was as a Librarian at the US Supreme Court Library. After spending time at home with her four children, Virginia attended the Columbia University School of Library Science. Following graduation, she took the position as Librarian for the Morris County Law Library. She left there to become a Reference Librarian at Rutgers University Law School in Newark where she worked until a few years before she passed away in 1995.
During her distinguished career, Virginia accomplished many things including updating the index to the Rutgers Law Review; preparing the chapter on administrative law in the first edition of Paul Axel-Lute’s book, NEW JERSEY LEGAL RESEARCH HANDBOOK; teaching legal research to the Rutgers law students; and compiling the NJ Unauthorized Practice Opinions. Virginia and several other NJLLA members created the publication THE CROSS-REFERENCE TABLE FROM THE NJSA TO THE NJAC. She achieved tenure while at Rutgers.
As one of the founders of the New Jersey Law Librarians Group, a precursor to NJLLA, Virginia helped the law librarians of New Jersey get organized and establish an educational association. After NJLLA was created as a Chapter of the American Association of Law Libraries in 1987, Virginia held various positions. She was a member-at-large on the Executive Board and served on the Nominating Committee, the Program Committee, and the then-Government Relations Committee.
The Virginia Till Lemmon Award was created in recognition of all that Virginia achieved both as a professional and for the law librarian profession here in New Jersey.
For more information, contact the Grants & Awards Committee.