Washington State Law Library
Deborah Norwood
State Law Librarian & Reporter of Decisions
360-357-2145
360-357-2143 (fax)
dnorwood@wln.com
In response to your message the Washington State Law Library
has the following policies which apply to the main library:
a. Physical access to library building. The Law Library is
housed in the Temple of Justice. By court rule, SAR 18, the Law
Library is open to the public weekdays from 8 a.m. -- 5 p.m. All
public areas of the library are open to any person in the
library; closed areas are Tech Services and the Law Librarian's
Office. By special arrangement, tours are offered through the
Law Library either by the library staff or by the legislative
tour guides.
b. Physical access to books. Stacks are open to the public in
the Temple. We also have a warehouse for book storage which is
closed to all but library staff; we house superseded statutes,
excess volumes of court reports and session laws for our state,
and sundry other publications. Anyone in the library may also
use the microforms (fiche and film).
c. Check-out and circulation. State employees and local
government (county and city) may sign-out materials; members of
the Washington state bar may also sign-out books. We will mail
directly to these two groups through phone request. The general
public may borrow books through interlibrary loan; we do not
mail to them. We also interlibrary loan books throughout the
country but predominately in the Pacific northwest. We will
interlibrary loan to prison and institutional libraries for use
of inmates, but we do not loan directly to inmates; these
libraries must be in Washington state.
d. Access to electronic media. We will perform WESTLAW and
Internet searches for state employees; we do not allow others to
use our pc's, phone lines, etc. We do not perform searches for
the general public or the bar. We will occasionally do a search
for other public employees (county or city, but not feds) if we
determine that the material is not available in print; this
mostly happens with recent U.S. Supreme. Court. opinions although
less frequently with their availability on the Internet.
For our three branch libraries at each Division of the Court
of Appeals:
a. Physical access to library building. Each library is part
of the space for its division of the Court of Appeals; all
internal space for these divisions (other than Clerk's Office) is
not open to the public.
b. Physical access. Closed space to the public and closed to
non-court employees..
c. Check-out. None except to court staff at each division.
d. Access to electronic media. None to the public; we assist
with searches via phone or e-mail for court staff requests.
Hope this answers your questions. Let me know if you need
more information. Other than the circulation policies, we are
very open and accessible to the general public and perform a lot
of reference work on their behalf. The stickiest point is
reference vs. legal advice.
Wyoming State Law Library
Kathy Carlson
State Law Librarian
307-777-7187
307-777-7240 (fax)
KCARLSON@windy.state.wy.us
We have an open building and open stacks, so everyone is
free to browse. (Judges' chambers being the exception.)
We do no yet have true electronic access for the public. We
may consider an Internet link in the future, given the number of
Wyoming materials being mounted. However, we will try to
download electronic information from the Net that cannot be found
in hard copy in the library for the public whenever possible. We
do not have and do not plan to have any WESTLAW or LEXIS access
for the public. We do have a terminal connected so that anyone
who has an account can search from the library, but they must
have their own password. They are then billed directly from the
supplier, and we do not have to deal with paperwork.
One thing that has happened the last few months is that our
classified materials have been loaded into the statewide PAC. In
a short time, anyone will be able to do a search of our catalog
from county libraries and by dial access from home or office.
This makes our collection more accessible statewide.
We have a few services for Wyoming attorneys that are not
offered to the general public (copying, faxing, and direct loan
of materials). We also have some extended hours for the bench
and bar. We will permit others to use the extended hours if they
feel that they can do legal research without assistance. They
need to understand that we only have clerical staff on duty and
that no reference assistance is provided.
Excerpt from the Wyoming State law Library Public Services Policy
The Wyoming State Law Library is dedicated to providing
access to legal materials to all Wyoming citizens. The law
library is located in the Wyoming Supreme Court Building at 2301
Capitol Avenue. The law library is open to the general public
and has reference personnel on duty Monday--Friday, 7:30 a.m. to
5:00 p.m.
Persons living in Cheyenne may register to borrow materials
designated as circulating directly from the law library. Proof
of residency and an operative telephone number may be requested.
All other Wyoming citizens may borrow materials from the law
library by making an interlibrary loan request at their county
library.
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