Jackson Twp. resident Judith Gaskell will be leaving Indiana to begin a new job as U.S. Supreme Court librarian Aug. 11 after a 20 year tenure at DePaul University College of Law.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist made the recent announcement that Gaskell was chosen over three other finalists after she had interviewed with the court staff and with Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Gaskill will be the tenth librarian of the court and third woman to hold the position. She replaces 15-year veteran Shelly Dowling, who retired. She will supervise a staff of 25 employees, which includes four research librarians and will manage more than 450,000 volumes.

Gaskell earned her bachelor’s degree in 1967 at Carleton College, masters in 1975 at the University of Chicago and in 1980 her juris doctorate at DePaul.

She began her library career as a librarian in the law firm of Sonnenschein, Carlin, Nath and Rosenthal in Chicago from 1974 to 1976.

She then became reference librarian in 1977 at the University of Chicago Law Library, where she became an associate law librarian before joining the DePaul staff in 1983.

At DePaul, Gaskell headed a staff of seven librarians, 12 full-time support staff members and 20 part-time and student and was responsible for 350,000 volumes.

She planned a major addition to and complete renovation of the library space in 1994, including a networked personal computer lab serving 1,000 law students.

She was the co-administrator of the university-wide online Endeavor Library System, and taught advanced legal research.

Posted 7/3/2003