ATLANTA - Associate Director of Georgia State University College of Law Library Ronald E. Wheeler recently was named one of the first honorees of the LexisNexis Librarian Wall of Fame.

The award is sponsored by LexisNexis and, according to Michael Saint-Onge of the LexisNexis Librarian Relations Group, was created to recognize the unsung heroes within the librarian community, "people who quietly and competently do the profession proud."

"Ron truly does represent the best of our profession," Saint-Onge said.

Wheeler, affectionately known as "Library Ron" by his students, is anything but unsung within the College of Law, according to Dean Steven Kaminshine, who said it’s hard to express adequately the gifts that Wheeler brings to the law school and the law library.

"Gifted in the classroom, active as a scholar, selfless in his service, innovative and effective in overseeing the library’s incredible support of faculty research, and dogged in his determination to keep our college ahead of the curve as libraries become the epicenter of informational technology and collaborative learning, Ron Wheeler epitomizes effective and creative academic leadership," Kaminshine said.

The Wall of fame was new for the LexisNexis booth this year at the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL)’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C. Individual LexisNexis Librarian Relations Consultants - librarians who work serving LexisNexis librarian customers - nominated potential candidates within their territory and LexisNexis selected only a handful of librarians from across the country to be profiled. 

Wheeler was thrilled to be recognized.

"It makes me really happy to be chosen by my peers to receive an award like this," he said. "It’s really nice to have students admire and appreciate your teaching, but to be recognized by other law librarians as somebody who has something maybe a cut above to offer the profession is really the highest form of praise. If you can believe it, there are a lot of library geeks like me and we all meet once a year at a conference. So, to be one of their unsung heroes is amazing."

When asked how he is involved with AALL, Wheeler laughingly responds, "how am I not involved?" For two years he was chairman of AALL’s  Social Responsibility Section which helps to bring social issues that affect law librarians and law librarianship to the awareness of the association. This includes the standing committee on Library Services to Institutional Residents, which provides library services to prisoners by monitoring whether prisoners have access to libraries and how they may gain access. Wheeler also has served on the Committee for Lesbian and Gay Issues, the Diversity Committee, and as the Special Interest Section Counsel Chair, which oversees all of the Special Interest Sections within AALL.

"I didn’t become a law librarian right after law school, but it makes sense in my mind," Wheeler said. "I have always been in service professions and I’ve always known I wanted to do something where I helped people." After working for the public defender’s office in Seattle, Wheeler worked primarily for AIDS non-profits. He helped AIDS patients and directed AIDS services, including coordination of the Volunteer Attorneys for Persons with AIDS Project and the Chicken Soup Brigade, which is now part of the Northwest AIDS Foundation. Knowing he did not want to abandon his law degree, Wheeler decided to return to "Library School."

"I do think librarians are all about service, whether it is students or faculty," he said.

"I enjoy teaching first-year law students and I love being the first exposure people have to legal research because I want them to know it can be fun, it can be interesting," he said.

Wheeler joined the College of Law faculty in 2006 as the Associate Director for Public Services, assisting the library director with planning goals, objectives and policies for the Public Services Department. He also teaches Legal Bibliography and Advanced Legal Research, and in 2010 will begin teaching Sexual Identity and the Law.

Wheeler received his J.D. from the University of Michigan and his M.L.I.S. from Wayne State University. Before coming to Georgia State College of Law, he worked as the assistant director for faculty research, and instructional services at the University of New Mexico School of Law Library in Albuquerque.

For more information on Wheeler, please visit his College of Law Faculty Web page.

~ By Abby Ferrell, Georgia State Law student