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 land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, ...

Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California * George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer ...

, and the first woman president of the

American Association of Law Libraries The American Association of Law Libraries "is a nonprofit educational organization with over 5,000 members nationwide. AALL's mission is to promote and enhance the value of law libraries to the legal and public communities, to foster the professi ...

(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 Dis ...

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. In 1874, Sigma Kappa was founded by five women: Mary Caffrey Low Carver, Elizabeth Gorham Hoag, Ida Mabel Fuller Pierce, ...

sorority. 1919 she was awarded a

Juris Doctor The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice law ...

degree, also from the University of California.

Career

Parma taught school briefly, in

Lompoc, California Lompoc ( ; Chumash: ''Lum Poc'') is a city in Santa Barbara County, California. Located on the Central Coast, Lompoc has a population of 43,834 as of July 2021. Lompoc has been inhabited for thousands of years by the Chumash people, who called ...

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 (commonly known as Berkeley Law or UC Berkeley School of Law) is the law school of the University of California, Berkeley, a public research university in Berkeley, California. It is one of 1 ...

, 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 ''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 playing ...

'' 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 library and information professionals working in business, government, law, finance, non-profit, and academic organizations and institutions. History The S ...

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