Bidding a Fond Farewell to Law Librarian Shirley David

By Christopher Krueger

When Shirley Hart David arrived in Sacramento from Minnesota to begin her tenure as Sacramento County Law Librarian, the Sacramento County Law Library was housed in the cramped and windowless basement of the Gordon D. Schaber Downtown Courthouse.

In October, twenty-one years after her arrival, Shirley is retiring to Hawaii but leaving our legal community with a veritable monument to her career. Her library, now known as the Sacramento County Public Law Library to emphasize its role in serving the public as a whole, not just the legal profession, has been housed in the renovated Hall of Justice Building since January 2001. The renovated circa 1916 building, formerly the home of the Sacramento Police Department, a misdemeanor courtroom, the city prosecutor's office, and the city infirmary, provides a beautiful and convenient home for the law library.

"She had a vision to take us out of the basement and to build a world class law library," said Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Gunther, a member of the board of trustees. "She kept at it and kept at it."

Deputy County Counsel Carly Hegle, who serves as the Sacramento County Bar Association's representative to the board of trustees, also praised Shirley's unwavering vision of what the library could be. "She never gave up" as the library sought alternative locations, Hegle said. "I never even heard her sound discouraged."

American Association of Law Libraries President Janis Johnston, left, presented an award to Sacramento County Public Law Librarian Shirley David at the AALL's annual meeting in July.

Shirley's accomplishments are not limited to leading her library into a new facility. When Shirley arrived in 1983, the law library had three full-time staff members and one part-time staff member. Today, the library boasts 20 staff members, half of whom are librarians.

The library has also kept up with changes in the legal profession. In 1983, the library had no computers. Today, the library has a computerized training room that was sponsored by Lexis-Nexis, and the library houses 60 personal computers, a computer server for its website and an email server, according to Maureen Shepard, the library's assistant director for support services.

The main library now has meeting rooms that can be rented by the hour, a significant requirement for a modern law library. "Libraries in order to be relevant have to be a meeting place. They have to be more than a warehouse where books are kept," said Coral Henning, the library' assistant director of public services. Henning, who is the incoming director of the library, praised Shirley for her forward-looking" approach to law librarianship.

The library has also expanded to two branches. Besides the main branch downtown, the library operates a satellite branch at the William R. Ridgeway Family Relations Courthouse, which opened in 1999.

Library staff members and trustees credit Shirley's leadership for expanding the library and then managing that expansion.

"I honestly believe that without her vision, her hard work, and her never giving up we would never have moved out of the courthouse and into this building," Shepard said. "I thought it was too difficult, even for her, and darned if she didn't pull it off."

Those who know Shirley describe her as an effective lobbyist for the library, an observation shared by many others. In order to have sufficient funds to move into a new facility, Shirley had to convince the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors to approve increases in the filing fees for legal papers in order to generate sufficient funds for library operations. But such increases would not have been possible without the support of the Superior Court, county administrative staff and the Sacramento County Bar Association, noted County Counsel Bob Ryan, a library trustee.

"She had to convince all those groups it was a good idea and she did it. She is a particularly persuasive person and a particularly persevering person," Ryan said.

Sacramento County Supervisor Roger Dickinson called Shirley "a real champion" for the library. "She has been a great steward and has understood that a public law library is not just for lawyers. She has been innovative and creative with an ability to adapt to changing times and needs for both the library and its users. We have been lucky to have Shirley and she can always look back with great pride on her role in making the Sacramento County Law Library so outstanding. I have greatly enjoyed the opportunity to work with her and will miss her."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Toso Himel credited Shirley for putting the library in the forefront of law libraries in its use of technology. "Under her guidance, the library made reasonably-priced computer legal research available to Sacramentans," Himel said. "With SLUG, the Sacramento Lawyer Computer Users' Group, Shirley set up interactive multimedia trial training in the Library. In the Law Library's spacious new location on Sixth Street, Shirley set up a computer training room for Library users."

"When I was the editor of Sacramento Lawyer magazine, Shirley had the idea of highlighting websites on the month's magazine theme. The feature is still here as 'Surfing from River City.'"

Superior Court Judge Loren McMaster, presently a library trustee, recalled that he first met Shirley years ago when he was a patron of the library. "Shirley was a hands-on director. She did not sit in her office; she could be found doing any number of jobs from working the front desk, assisting other employees, and serving as a reference librarian. She was always friendly and helpful to the patrons, whom she often called by name."

"After being appointed to the Bench I became a trustee of the Sacramento County Law Library, and saw Shirley's value from a different perspective. Shirley is a talented administrator who combines technical expertise with people skills. That combination is often hard to find, which makes Shirley stand out. She has done an excellent job in running the library and in working with a diverse Board of Trustees."

"I came to appreciate Shirley even more upon becoming Secretary-Treasurer of the Board since her budgetary skills are outstanding. Shirley has been a joy to work with."

Ryan concurred in Judge McMaster's assessment. "Working with Shirley as a board member has been a marvelous thing because you knew she was managing the law library very well. All we needed to do was set policy."

Shirley's contributions to the law library profession stretched beyond our local community. San Diego County Public Law Librarian Charles R. Dyer describes Shirley as a pivotal player in the legislative activities undertaken by the California County Law Librarians.

Dyer noted that Shirley helped found the Ask The Law Librarian Program, a statewide service on the website of the Judicial Council that lets members of the public ask reference questions over the internet. Representatives of 14 law libraries throughout the state providing staffing for the service, which provides nearly 60 hours per week of online reference advice.

When asked to describe his view of Shirley's contribution to the profession, Dyer said, "It's huge. . . . She does a whole lot of stuff she never tried to take credit for. She's been a great mentor for many, many librarians. She's been a ground-breaker in many ways. . . Other libraries, even ones that are much larger, have looked at the Sacramento County Public Law Library as a leader because of the great things that they have done."

In recognition of her accomplishments, the American Association of Law Libraries bestowed its 2004 Marian Gould Gallagher Distinguished Service Award on her during the AALL's Annual Meeting held in July in Boston.

Shirley said she is pleased to retire now that she has accomplished everything that she set out to do in Sacramento. "I am really proud that the law library is an integral part of the legal community here."

Congratulations, Shirley, for all that you have accomplished for our community. And thank you!

September / October 2004