Sacramento County Public Law Library News

By Coral Henning, Sacramento County Public Law Librarian

Bench/Bar is the theme of this issue of Sacramento Lawyer, and the Sacramento County Public Law Library is truly an institution that serves the bench, bar and the citizens of Sacramento County. The law library is neither a department of the court nor a bar association law library. In fact, it is an independent special municipal district of the County of Sacramento that substantially provides the library with its space and fiscal services.

Neither state nor local bar dues are provided to fund the law library. Also, the law library receives no state appropriations. Instead the library derives its primary operating funds from a share of the civil filing fees. As the number of filings continues to drop, the library income also continues to drop.

There has been a task force created by legislation to study revenue options for county law libraries. I expect its report to be available very soon. Although filing fee income has served the county law library system very well these past 114 years, many county law libraries are unable to keep afloat as operating costs continue to rise. Currently, county law libraries are looking for a reliable funding source to supplement the filing fee structure.

Here in Sacramento, we are presently evaluating the print collection in an effort to make smarter more cost effective collection development decisions. We have canceled the regional reporters and are scrutinizing some of the duplicate sets of other case materials that we have in electronic format.

We recently completed a six-week online survey that had more than 200 participants asking our users what materials they wanted us to purchase for the law library. Many of you said that you wanted additional copies of treatises that we already owned. We are considering your suggestions as the collection development policy is rewritten.

Congratulations to Robyn Moltzen! You may recognize her as our circulation library assistant, the one who registers you for classes and checks books in and out. Robyn has completed her master's degree in library and information science at San Jose State University and has been promoted to Public Services Librarian. She'll be staffing the reference desks at the main and branch libraries as well as performing numerous other responsibilities.

Best wishes to David McCusker, who is leaving us to join American River College's library staff. David most recently was responsible for our training center and the numerous MCLE classes presented there. As training coordinator, David developed new classes such as Getting more from Google and PowerPoint for Legal Professionals.

In mid-July, Kelly Browne, Jean Willis, and Board of Trustees members Judge Renard Sheppard, Judge Shelleyanne Chang and I will be traveling to San Antonio for the 98 th annual American Association of Law Libraries meeting. The theme is: "Strategize! Values, Visions, Vistas." Effective leadership and strategic thinking require updated knowledge and skills. This premier educational event provides opportunities to learn from outside experts as well as from one another.

July / August 2005