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Georgetown Law Remembers Bob Oakley

For Immediate Release
October 1, 2007

Contact:
Elissa Free 202-662-9519

Robert L. Oakley
Bob Oakley

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Georgetown University Law Center mourns the death of Professor and Law Librarian Robert Oakley, who died unexpectedly Saturday, September 29, of cardiac arrest. He was 61.

"We are deeply saddened by the loss of Bob Oakley," said Georgetown Law Dean T. Alexander Aleinikoff. "He was a wonderful colleague and friend, who, over the course of 25 years of visionary leadership, built the Georgetown Law library into one of the best in the world."

During Oakley's tenure, the Georgetown Law Library was transformed from a collection housed on two floors of an academic building to one that fills the 144,000-square foot Edward Bennett Williams Law Library and the 30,000-square foot John Wolff International and Comparative Law Library. Not only did Oakley expand the collection well beyond one million volumes, making it the fourth largest law library in the country, but he also kept the library on the cutting edge of information technology.

Oakley, who joined the Law Center in 1982 as law librarian and professor, was a national leader in his field. He served on the executive board of the American Association of Law Libraries and as its president in 2000-2001. He represented the association's interests in Washington for 18 years, providing testimony and expertise on Capitol Hill.

Oakley was an expert on copyright law and wrote and lectured on the subject. He was a member of the Section 108 Study Group, a select committee of copyright experts convened by the Library of Congress and charged with updating the Copyright Act for the digital world. His other scholarly interests included information policy and preservation. In 1998 he received the David J. McCarthy Award for Excellence in Administration and Service at the Law Center.

Robert Louis Oakley was born in New York City on November 6, 1945, and grew up in Salt Lake City and Provo, Utah. As a teenager, he moved with his family to Long Island and from there to Ithaca, New York, to attend Cornell University. While at Cornell he became a chimes master and developed a lifelong passion for folk dancing. He received his B.A. and law degree from Cornell and his library science degree from Syracuse University.

Before joining the Law Center, Oakley was an associate law librarian at Cornell Law School and the director of the law library and associate professor of law at Boston University School of Law.

Over the years, Oakley enjoyed his favorite pursuits – Balkan dancing, amateur radio and photography. He married Barbara DesRosiers Oakley in 2005. His 28-year marriage to Madeleine Cohen Oakley ended in divorce; he was the devoted father of their two adult children, Esther and Daniel.

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