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By FRED W. WRIGHT Jr.
© St. Petersburg Times, published June 18, 2001
NEW POSITION: Associate professor and director, Law Library and Legal Information Center, Stetson University College of Law, Gulfport.
PREVIOUS POSITION: Associate director, Law Library and Legal Information Center, Stetson University College of Law, Gulfport.
As Stetson University College of Law becomes "probably one of the most wired schools in the country," Madison M. Mosley Jr. said he is looking forward to increased interaction with students.
As of Feb. 1, Mosley took on the dual responsibilities of directing the more than 360,000-volume law library and teaching an occasional course as an adjunct. His primary duties are to oversee the day-to-day operations of the law library.
"It's a different type of responsibility," he said. "It will help me to interact directly with the students."
Mosley came to Stetson University College of Law in 1990 as a student. "I graduated in 1992 and never left," he said.
Although he earned a law degree, he chose not to practice law and segued into working at the library.
Mosley had been a librarian before coming to Stetson. He was director of the library at Florida Community College in Avon Park from 1982 to 1989. Prior to 1982, he worked a year at Florida State University's Center for Studies and Vocational Education, a position he also segued into after earning a Ph.D. in library science at FSU in 1980.
Jobs in library science appeal to him, Mosley said, "because they service the people." He said he enjoys "helping people meet their information needs. That's what motivates us."
Stetson's law library is one of about a half-dozen in Florida, he said, "and one of the leaders in technology." The library has more than 2,100 network connections that students can access with laptops.
"I've always been fascinated by knowledge as evidenced by having spent half my life in school," Mosley, 51, said.
He said he also was intrigued by law, seeing its applications in the two years he served on the Avon Park City Council. "I saw how the law determines what you can and cannot do, and I was just fascinated by the concept," he said.
After losing in an Avon Park mayoral race, Mosley said he began "looking around for other stuff to do. The idea of going to law school came up. I really didn't come with the idea of practicing," he said. "I wanted the degree and the knowledge."
Mosley, who is single, lives in St. Petersburg. He is co-chairman of the city of St. Petersburg Citizen Review Committee. He has served as president of the Florida Library Association and was a board member of the Black Caucus of the American Library Association.
Stetson University College of Law is Florida's first and oldest law school at more than 100 years old.