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One of the challenges for the modern public law library is to figure out how to deliver services to a changing constituency. Once patronized almost solely by the legal profession, the customers of the modern public law library are almost 50 percent lay people. These customers tend to require much more time and attention then lawyers and law clerks ever needed.
Today in the pro se room, a shy woman patron is being helped by the same librarian. She is grateful to be shown the books on eviction, quietly telling the librarian that she has only 7 days before she has to move. She then asks timidly if it is all right for her to sit down here to look at the books. As this customer carefully begins searching her first book, the librarian leaves the room and is immediately accosted by a well-to-do looking older man, clearly an attorney, requesting help in a nearby cubicle equipped with one of the library's computers specifically designed for customer electronic information access. This lawyer appears to be using this library computer for the first time, supplementing the pile of legal books he has gathered around it. The librarian quickly and efficiently assists this patron in furthering his research electronically.
Shirley David, Director of the Sacramento County Public Law Library, indicates that many types of research continue to lend themselves better to book form, such as thorough examinations of statutory law and historical research. There are also several unresolved issues related to uniform archiving of digital information, making the shelf life of digital information somewhat undependable. Lesser-used information that is not digitized may never be, due to the lack of a commercial market. The funding for all of these services, which has always been makeshift at best, is becoming increasingly scarce. The only formal funding mechanism supporting county public law libraries in the state of California is Business and Professions Code Section 6300 et seq., authorizing a minimal percentage of local county filing fees, which may be dedicated to supporting the local public law library. Because of alternative dispute resolution as well as other societal factors, the filing of lawsuits is not increasing with the rate of the population. As a result, the budgets of county public law libraries are decreasing, just as the demand for legal information has increased. A consortium of the County Public Law Libraries in California is currently working on funding issues. This is one of the comments they received among the responses by law librarians to a lengthy questionnaire designed to assist them in narrowing their focus on the problems at hand. "The funding mechanism of county law libraries worked well for 100 years. But it may now be obsolete. It was created when ADR did not exist, citizens rarely represented themselves in court, and only lawyers used law libraries." In the case of our Public Law Library, at present the county is providing the majority of the funding for the actual facilities housing both the main and the branch library. The rest of the funding is being made up by filing fees, by trust fund reserves and interest, and by relatively small sums collected by the library for fines and fees for such services as faxing and copying. At present projections, the costs of running the public law library will outgrow present funding sources within 8 years. In short, by 2010 the law library will be running in the red without any sufficient funding source available. It is now late afternoon, and the Sacramento County Public Law Library is bustling with lawyers, law clerks, pro se customers and one older lady who looks like she is probably just trying to stay out of the rain. The various ethnic backgrounds of the library patrons are much more representative of the general population than that of the legal population. It appears that "Access to Justice" is a reality in this building, not just some politically correct slogan. In an era where the average age of a county public law library facility in California is 43 years old, we have much to be thankful for in our beautiful, brand new, technologically current facility at 813 Sixth Street, between H and I. (We also have a new, specialized branch at the William R. Ridgeway Family Court, emphasizing family and probate law.) Take the time to wander in with that burning legal question you've never quite gotten around to pursuing - the staff at the Sacramento County Public Law Library welcomes the challenge. "But when the laws are written down, rich and poor alike have equal justice, and it is open to the weaker to use the same language to the prosperous when he is reviled by him, and the weaker prevails over the stronger if he has justice on his side." Euripides, The Suppliants, 422 BCE Sacramento
County Public Law Library - Answers to FAQs A note about the location: The controversy is over and the library is now located two blocks away from the courthouse. The walk from the parking lot between 7th and 8th is approximately one block longer than the walk to the basement of the courthouse, without the need to take an always slow and crowded courthouse elevator. There is an Attorney's Convenience Center that has just opened in the downtown courthouse, which offers online access to most library user databases. Highlights:
The library staff is proud to offer its services in promotion of equal access to justice. |
In
the new Sacramento County Public Law Library
on a recent weekday morning, business is somewhat slow. Only a
few of the carrels are occupied, primarily by lawyers and law
clerks. The librarian in the stacks is being monopolized by a
man who belabors the evil nature of his ex-wife, his ex-partner,
and his current legal foe. As he continues to abuse her good nature,
this vexatious litigant continuously asks the librarian for information
that clearly constitutes legal advice. Nonetheless, she listens
quietly and patiently for some time, and finally brings him to
yet another volume, indicating that this volume may have many
of the answers to the type of issues that he is raising.
Our
Public Law Library is equipped with a luxury most county public
law libraries are not; an entire room devoted to the pro se litigant.
This room contains a set of codes, a computer access station,
and a significant number of Nolo Press-type self-help legal books,
some in languages other than English. This room also contains
a corner dedicated to the small children that sometimes must accompany
their parental customers. A half size bookrack full of children's
books, a special table and chairs and a big stuffed tiger complete
this portion of the room.
The
Sacramento County Public Law Library is now one of the best electronically
equipped public law libraries in the state, with 12 customer computer
stations available to access special law library databases, the
general collection catalog, internet research access, and access
to Westlaw and Lexis, if the patron has a personal account with
one of these services. Electronic access like this is expensive,
and one of the reasons many county law libraries in the state
cannot offer such access is because the technology changes rapidly
and it takes highly skilled personnel to maintain and upgrade
the databases, the equipment, and the information. Although all
libraries perceive electronic access as the wave of the future
with respect to library services, most believe that books are
here to stay.