It is with tears that I write my last column for Sacramento Lawyer. In mid-October, I am retiring after a thirty-two year career as a law librarian and moving to Hawaii. After spending twelve years at the Minnesota State Law Library, I was very fortunate to be offered the job of Sacramento County Law Librarian on behalf of the library board by then library board hiring committee chair Judge James Ford. I began my career in Sacramento in July 1983. My first column was in the October 1983 issue of The Docket. The president of the county bar association then was Orrin Finch and the Docket editor was Leroy Fong. My first sentence read, "Thank you for the warm welcome I've received during my first two months as Sacramento County Law Librarian." The welcome the members of our legal community have given me and the library staff has continued to be cordial and supportive these last twenty-one years.

From day one we have worked together as a community to improve the library services and the library facility. When Orrin introduced himself he came with the suggestion that the library offer Westlaw or Lexis for lawyers who could not afford their own monthly subscription. Today, as a result of that suggestion, Sacramento has the only bar association/law library co-sponsored Lexis Membership Group in the country.

In 1983, Lawrence Schei and Norman Baldwin were the law library committee of the county bar association and their role was to advise the library board and county law librarian. That connection has continued to this day. When we were so out of space and we didn't have any additional expansion options, the county bar president added advisors with building development backgrounds to find a building solution with us. With the effort that led to our move to the renovated historic hall of justice building, the county bar president began attending board meetings and each new president continues to advise us and make connections for us. I feel very fortunate that Carly Hegle has served on the county bar association law library committee for the last twelve years. She has volunteered innumerable hours reviewing and improving library contracts and meeting with county officials on the library's behalf.

I was very happy when an associate membership category was established so that I could be a member of the Sacramento County Bar Association. It has also meant a lot to me that I could serve as advisor to the Sacramento Lawyer (and Docket). I enjoyed sharing issue topic ideas, writing profiles, finding authors, and finding websites for the "Surfing from River City" sidebar. Most of all it gave me an opportunity to meet the leaders of the bar association and find out what your issues were so that the library could provide services to meet your needs.

I also appreciate your support for the many requests to the board of supervisors for civil filing fee increases to benefit the law These funds have allowed us to furnish both of our library facilities, pay a share of the rent, increase our services to you, and save for the future.

And the future is very bright. After an extensive nationwide search, the 1aw board has hired Coral Henning as the new Sacramento County Public Law Librarian. Coral has worked at the library for the last eight years in many capacities. Her most recent assignment as training coordinator has included her membership on the county bar association MCLE committee. Because of her efforts the library provides low cost MCLE classes at the library and through the on-line Center Coral holds a Masters in Library Science degree from San Jose State University, a JO. from Golden Gate University, and a B.A. from San Francisco State University. Before coming to Sacramento she worked at several law libraries including assistant director at San Francisco Law Library, librarian at Marin County Law Library, and librarian at the McCormick, Barstow, Sheppard, Wayte & Carruth law firm in Fresno. Coral is an active member of the American Association of Law Libraries, and its local chapter NOCALL She is an also an associate member of the Sacramento County Bar Association.

Coral has been busy building her management team. Our assistant directors, Ruth Nunez and Maureen Shepard have worked with me for over half of my tenure to expand our services and lead our staff efforts. I announced Ruth's retirement last issue and Maureen is retiring from law librarianship in October to pursue a new career. Maureen was our first and only systems librarian. She was hired to manage the computer systems when we automated the card catalog thirteen years ago. That computer system has expanded to include a network that provides access to commercial and free legal databases from all library computers at the main library and branch, staff office automation, library pages for the Superior Court's intranet, support for the computers in the library's computer training center, and the library's website. Plus, she leads all the library support services including acquiring, organizing, maintaining the library and superior court book collections, and the internal administrative services. Maureen's vision and back office skills contributed substantially to the success of our operation. In Coral's first columns I'm sure she will be introducing her new management team to you.

Mahalo, for making your county law librarian feel so welcome.

September / October 2004