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Sacramento County Public Law Library News |
| This year is turning out to be a terrific year for the Sacramento County Public Law Library, and I am very excited to be a part of it. As I write we are in the midst of interviewing several highly-qualified candidates for the position of training coordinator, and by the time this article is published the library will be fully-staffed. I know this will come as a relief to our fearless leader, Coral Henning, who has been working at least two and up to four jobs for the past six months: training coordinator, the position Coral held before becoming director; acting head of public services, a position she held from the time Ruth Nunez retired in July 2004 until I arrived in November 2004; and acting head of support services, a position Coral held from the time Maureen Shepard retired in October 2004 until Jean Willis arrived in January. We are also busily planning an art exhibit in recognition of the theme of this issue of the Sacramento Lawyer: "Lawyers and the Arts." Our exhibit, "A Creative Merger: Lawyers & Artists," will feature the original art work of local Sacramento area attorneys and Sacramento area artists whose work portrays legal themes. The exhibit, co-sponsored by the California Lawyers for the Arts, will be displayed in the library April 14 through May 21. We will be holding a reception from 6 to 8 p.m. on opening night, Thursday April 14. Come to the reception and help us celebrate National Library Week, which is April 10 through April 16 this year. When you come, don't forget to bring your wireless laptop. Our new wireless network allows you to access Westlaw, Hein OnLine, Califa, Newsbank, IndexMaster, our newest online acquisition, US CourtForms, and more, from anywhere in the Main Library. If you're not familiar with all of these databases, or if you want to brush up on your online research skills, you should come to our newest class offering, "The 5 W's & 1 H: An Introduction to the Sacramento County Law Library's Online Databases." This hands-on computer class, first offered in February, covers the basics of all the free online resources provided by the library. The class will be offered during National Library Week from 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday April 12, and again from 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday June 7. In her last column, Coral mentioned that we now allow you to bring your own floppy disks and USB drives to the Library so you can download information from our online databases and take it home or to the office to work on later. If you forget your portable storage device, however, no need to despair. We've been selling diskettes for $1 each for some time, and we are now offering USB jump drives for sale. Jump drives, for those of you who are, like me, not as technically savvy as Coral, are portable hard drives that can be plugged into a USB port. They are also known as memory keys, memory sticks, or flash drives. Jump drives can store much more data than a diskette. The 32 MB LEXAR JumpDrive that SCPLL is selling for $15 holds as much information as twenty-two floppy disks, yet can fit in your pocket or on a key ring. Try one the next time you visit! March / April 2005 |