Rosamond Thomas Parma (1884 – October 24, 1946) was an American law librarian. She was the first law librarian at the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university, research university system in the U.S. state of California. Headquartered in Oakland, California, Oakland, the system is co ...

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, and the first woman president of the

American Association of Law Libraries The American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) is a nonprofit educational organization with over 5,000 members across the United States. AALL's mission is to promote and enhance the value of law libraries to the legal and public communities, to ...

(AALL). She was inducted into the AALL Hall of Fame in 2010, and into the California Library Hall of Fame in 2016.

Early life

Rosamond Thomas Parma was born in Santa Barbara, California, the daughter of Italian immigrants G. B. Parma and Catarina Parma. Her father grew oranges. She graduated from

Santa Barbara High School Santa Barbara Senior High School, "Home of the Dons," is situated on a sprawling campus in Santa Barbara, California in the Santa Barbara Unified School District. Among the oldest high schools in California and one of five high schools in the Di ...

in 1901, and earned a bachelor's degree at the University of California In 1908. She was one of the founding members of the school's chapter of the

Sigma Kappa Sigma Kappa (, also known as SK or Sig Kap) is a sorority founded on November 9, 1874 at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. The sorority has initiated 226,000 members, has 119 collegiate chapters, and has over 98 alumnae chapters. It is offic ...

sorority. In 1919 she was awarded a

Juris Doctor A Juris Doctor, Doctor of Jurisprudence, or Doctor of Law (JD) is a graduate-entry professional degree that primarily prepares individuals to practice law. In the United States and the Philippines, it is the only qualifying law degree. Other j ...

degree, also from the University of California.

Career

Parma taught school briefly, in

Lompoc, California Lompoc ( ; Chumashan ) is a city in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Located on the Central Coast, its population was 43,834 as of July 2021. Lompoc has been inhabited for thousands of years by the Chumash people, who called t ...

right after college. She returned to the university to become the first law librarian at the

UC Berkeley School of Law The University of California, Berkeley School of Law (Berkeley Law) is the Law school in the United States, law school of the University of California, Berkeley. The school was commonly referred to as "Boalt Hall" for many years, although it was ...

, running the library and developing the collection at Boalt Hall from 1911 to 1935. She taught law librarianship and law bibliography at Berkeley after 1922, and in 1925 was described as one of the only women teaching in a law school in the United States. In 1928, she toured other American law libraries for her work. She was manager of the ''

California Law Review The ''California Law Review'' (also referred to as ''CLR'') is the journal of the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. It was established in 1912. The application process consists of an anonymous write-on competition, with grades play ...

'' from 1928 to 1935. She retired in 1935. "Neither the formal record of her titles nor the twenty-four years of service, however, reveal her intense devotion to the well-being of students, faculty, and alumni, and to the development of the law library," noted a colleague in the law review. From 1930 to 1932, she was president of the American Association of Law Librarians (AALL). She was the first woman to hold that leadership position. In 1934, she traveled to the annual meeting of the

Special Libraries Association The Special Libraries Association (SLA) is an international professional association for librarians, library and information professionals working in business, government, law, finance, non-profit, and academic organizations and institutions. Af ...

in New York, and to Montreal for the AALL meeting that year; then extended her travels to Europe, including a visit to Rome. In 1937, she was elected a life member of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL). She was one of the first inductees into the AALL Hall of Fame in 2010, and was inducted into the California Library Hall of Fame in 2016.

Personal life

Parma took temporary leave of the university in 1914, returning to Santa Barbara to recover from complications following an appendectomy. She died in 1946, aged 62, in Santa Barbara, California.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Parma, Rosamond 1884 births 1946 deaths American librarians American women librarians Law librarians University of California, Berkeley alumni UC Berkeley School of Law faculty People from Santa Barbara, California American women academics