Library Director Judy Janes to Retire

After a career at UC Davis School of Law that spanned more than five decades, Library Director and Lecturer in Law Judy Janes will retire later this month. We want to thank her for her commitment and service to the law school and wish her all the best in retirement.

Judy began her career during the early years of the law school after completing her undergraduate degree at UC Davis. She worked for Edward L. Barrett Jr., the first dean to lead King Hall.

Dean Kevin R. Johnson noted that, amazingly, Judy has worked with every dean in King Hall's history.

"Judy has an incredible amount of institutional knowledge," Johnson said. "She helped create a first-class law library and we were lucky to have her leadership over the years. We will miss her as she retires but she has left a strong foundation for us to continue to build upon." 

At the beginning of her tenure at the library, she was a library assistant in the temporary buildings near the Silo on campus. In 1969 she helped move the library collection into King Hall. She attended McGeorge School of Law from 1975-1979 and, after receiving her law degree and passing the California bar, became a librarian.

In the late 1980s, Judy saw the completion of the basement in the building and then the addition of infant care, trial practice space and a computer lab. In the 1990s, the law school started to utilize online resources. Improvements to Westlaw and Lexis databases led to a new era of legal research and teaching. Judy developed the Advanced Legal Research course that law librarians have taught since 2009. More recently, librarians have taught research modules as part of the first-year Legal Research and Writing curriculum. In 2012, Judy was appointed director of the Mabie Law Library.

In addition to Judy's many successes building and leading the library, her work reached beyond the law school. She has been active in campus, community and library professional organizations, serving on committees, including co-chairing the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on the Status of Women, and as president of both the campus librarians’ association, LAUC-D, and Northern Regional Chapter of the American Association of Law Libraries.

Over the years Judy received recognition for her advocacy work to promote the public's free access to information, including the national American Association of Law Libraries Robert Oakley award for her work on the passage of the Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act (UELMA) in California in 2012. She was honored by the Northern California Association of Law Libraries for work on the enactment of Senate Bill 1507 passed in 1996, which added to the California government code the requirement to preserve legislative and rulemaking records and to guarantee their access to the public. Judy also received the Professional Achievement Award in 2006 from the Northern California Association of Law Libraries. Since 1990, Judy has served as the administrator of a worldwide law library listserv with more than 3,000 members who share knowledge and information about legal resources and materials.

In 1968, Judy married a fellow UC Davis graduate, David, and they take pride in all things Aggie. They are especially proud to be working with others on the Class of 1968 Gateway Project that is under construction at the campus entrance at Howard Way and Russell.

A search is underway to hire the new law library director. UC Davis Law Senior Research Librarian Alyssa Thurston will serve as interim director.