Laurie:
The Sourcebook for Law Library Governing Boards and Committees, AALL pub. #45 (1994) listed every state's laws affecting county law library funding, as available at that time. There have been considerable changes since then, and the State, Court and County Law Libraries SIS Trustee Development Committee is updating the manual. I believe Alison
Alifano is in charge, although I don't think that section has been assigned yet. (Maybe you would like to volunteer.)
Other things you should know:
The AALL Task Force on New Funding Opportunities for Public Law Libraries, chaired by Anne Grande, has added regular operating funds as a concern, in addition to its push to get grant funding. I haven't talked to Anne lately about this, but I believe she has put the Task Force's work on hold while the State, Court and County Law Libraries SIS's
new Working Group on a New Model Code for County Law Libraries (formed July 1999) begins its work. I believe the idea is that, once there is such a model code, then the Task Force would recommend it to the AALL Executive Board for approval and perhaps advocacy, hopefully at the state level. Mike Miller, Director at the Maryland State Law Library,
is the chair of the SCCLL SIS's Working Group. Mike has assigned several of his Working Group members to write up position papers and assessments of the current situation.
I am a member of the Working Group, representing California. The Council of California County Law Librarians, by the way, is working on creating a wholesale revision of California's statutory chapter on county law libraries, California Business and Professions Code sections 6300 to 6365. We have reached consensus on many items, but have a number
of things yet to work out. The intent is to move the chapter to the Government Code, to put in policy about the county law libraries as necessary for "access to justice," to increase revenue sources, to deal with building issues, and to create standards for county law libraries. This is a tall order, so in order to get this done and secure the
amount of support from other groups we will need to get it through the Legislature, CCCLL is seeking a grant to hire someone to work with us. If we don't get the grant, we plan to increase CCCLL dues (which are already substantial in that they pay for our lobbyist), but it must be done. We figure the project at about four years. Please note that
we determined as a group not to seek to emulate the general public libraries in California, whose statutes are in the Education Code and, while getting a substantial amount of support from the State, rely primarily on local funding (property and sales tax) determined by local vote.
Meanwhile, CCCLL is going to seek legislation this next year to get income from criminal assessments (i.e., traffic fines mostly), in addition to our reliance on civil court filing fees.
Good luck. Stay in touch.
Charles R. Dyer
CCCLL President
Laurie Miller wrote:
> I am in the process of preparing a survey of the 50 states' funding apparatus for county law libraries. I want to include all statutory and non-statutory sources of funding. This survey will be utilized in Washington State's effort to obtain additional funding, but will be made available to any other library/state needing the information.
>
> I would appreciate any assistance you could provide with sources of funding. You need not provide the text of your statutes, only the cite. And, any additional resources for funding.
>
> Thank you!
> Laurie Miller
> Pierce County Law Library
> Tacoma, Washington
> lmille2@co.pierce.wa.us
-- Charles R. Dyer Director of Libraries San Diego County Public Law Library cdyer@sdcll.org http://www.sdcll.org
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