KCLL Klues: Washington State Legal Research

Divorce is a sensitive personal matter and no one process is right for everyone.  Many couples find that the no-court process known as Collaborative Divorce a welcome alternative to the often destructive, uncomfortable aspects of traditional divorce.  On May 25th, the library will be hosting a class from 12-1:30PM on this topic called “Collaboration: A Respectful Divorce Process”.  The class will be held in our Seattle location and presented by a member of the bar who practices in the field of collaborative divorce.  You can sign up today by calling the library at 206-296-0940.

Sweet! It's Construction Law! Photo by Annah Ray

Every year since 2005, the American Association of Law Libraries hosts a photo contest titled “Day in the Life” which gives librarians and library staff an opportunity to photograph their daily tasks.  This year, our photograph titled ”Sweet! It’s Construction Law,” by Annah Ray, placed third in the category Librarians as Expert Researchers. 

This is KCLL’s third win in the “Day in the Life” contest, having recevied the overall prize and another third place award in 2005 for photos taken by Tina Ching.

The King County Law Library Board has announced that it is changing its name to Public Law Library of King County and that it has appointed Rita Dermody as Director, effective May 1, 2011. As Director, Ms. Dermody will oversee operations and direct all activities of the library.

The library’s Board of Trustees chose the new name based on a recommendation from its Advisory Committee. Judge Mary Yu, President of the Board of Trustees, remarked about the change, “We just want to be known as widely as possible for what we are—a reliable public library that emphasizes legal resources. We wanted to be sure that non-lawyers feel comfortable utilizing our resources.” The library’s new name is intended to dispel the perception among self-represented litigants that it is only for lawyers or court personnel and emphasize the public nature of this resource, in hopes of making the public feel invited.

As the new Director, Ms. Dermody is dedicated to promoting the library as the first stop for members of the public who need legal help. She is devoted to ensuring access to legal research and is eager to represent the Public Law Library in the greater librarian and legal communities. Ms. Dermody joined the Law Library in 1998 and has served as branch librarian,

Collection Access Services Librarian, and Interim Director. After working in virtually every type of law library, she sees her appointment to this position as the culmination of her experience and passion for helping people. She strongly believes in the importance of this facility and wants to use her position to “touch more lives and have more impact on legal research.”

Stephen Ellis, Vice President of the Board of Trustees, stated: “Rita successfully served the Public Law Library as its Interim Director and when it came time to appoint a permanent Director we realized, following a thorough evaluation process involving trustees, staff and third parties, that we had no need to conduct a formal search. Our Director was already in place and performing well.” Judge Yu echoed the sentiment, “The Board has total confidence in Rita’s ability to take the Public Law Library to the next level. Rita is a leader and known for her collaborative style. She works well with all of our partner agencies and customers, and her commitment to fostering access to justice is exactly what we need at this time. We are grateful that she accepted the position.”

For further information, contact Judge Mary Yu, President of the King County Law Library Board of Trustees at 206.296.9275. Interviews with Rita Dermody may be arranged by calling her directly at 206.205.6101.

Trustees of the Library are Stephen Ellis, Patrick McIntyre, Jim Brewer, Judge Andrea Darvas, and Judge Mary Yu.

As part of our National Library Week celebration, we would like to refresh your memory about the many custom databases we provide to support your research.  Use of all of these is free to anyone who visits either of our branches.  If you choose to print your results, the charge is 15 cents per page.

Westlaw — our custom subscription includes full-text access to all State appellate-level decisions, cases from all Federal district and circuit courts, all cases from the US Supreme Court, and the legislative and administrative codes from all fifty states.  It also includes full-text access to our State’s legal encyclopedia Washington Practice, broad-based legal encyclopedias such as American Jurisprudence 2d, AmJur Proof of Facts and AmJur Trials, Washington jury verdicts and West’s citator service Keycite.

Lexis — our custom subscription focuses on Washington State and Washington Federal resources including all decisions from our State Courts of Appeal and Supreme Court, cases originating in the Federal district courts in Washington and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, the Annotated Revised Code of Washington, and all three of our State’s law school publications, Washington Law Review, Seattle University Law Review, and Gonzaga Law Review.  It also includes access to Lexis’ citator service, Shepards.

Fastcase – the newest addition to our database lineup includes cases and statutes from all 50 states, federal statutes and cases, links to federal and state regulatory materials and specialty databases such as IRS Revenue Rulings,  Board of Immigration Appeals, United States Tax Court and U.S. Court of Federal Claims.  It also includes access to FastCase’s Authority Check system to help you quickly locate additional decisions related to your research.

SupportCalc — our subscription to this specialized software enables you to fill out, save and print child support and support-related documents for Washington State without having to manually calculate rates and figures.

HeinOnline — our subscription to this valuable resource provides access to full-text articles from hundreds of the nation’s leading law reviews and bar journals, the Code of Federal Regulations and United States Code, a variety of Congressional documents including the Congressional Record and the Congressional Record Daily, and legal classics such as Blackstone’s Commentaries.

The American Library Association’s theme for this year’s National Library Week is “Create Your Own Story@ KCLL.” KCLL is celebrating the week with free Family Law classes and cookies! We will also be offering prizes to patrons who visit us at noon during the week. 

 The library is excited to announce a new class: Family Law Resources.  This 1 hour class is targeted at non-attorneys to help them find resources for family law matters such as divorce, child custody or child support.  During National Library Week, we will be offering this class in Seattle on April 11 from 12-1pm and in Kent on April 14 from 12-1pm.  To register, please call 206-296-0940.

 Please note that our Kent branch will close early at 11:00am on Friday, April 15 for staff training.

Having recently posted about the litigation surrounding Google’s Google Book project, we thought it would also be useful to share links to some of the other prominent resources which you can use to find free digital books.

Project Gutenberg – Project Gutenberg provides free access to over 33,000 titles in a variety of common file formats.  Note their copyright caveat which reads “Our ebooks are free in the United States because their copyright has expired. They may not be free of copyright in other countries. Readers outside of the United States must check the copyright laws of their countries before downloading or redistributing our ebooks.”

The Online Books Page – The Online Books Page indexes over 1 million free digital books.  It is the brain-child of John Mark Ockerbloom and is supported by University of Pennsylvania Libraries.

Open Library – Open Library is a project of the Internet Archive with the lofty mission of creating “one web page for every book ever published”.  It indexes far more than just ebooks but it does boast that its collection includes over 1 million free digital editions.

We have updated our training calendar with new class dates through the end of June with the exception of eFiling classes after March.  New eFiling dates for April – June will be announced soon.  Each class is limited to 10 students and space fills up quickly.  Call the library at 206-296-0940 to sign up.

We are now using a free web-based calendar product from www.30boxes.com that we hope will be easier to use and maintain than the previous calendar.  Check it out!

In early December, the King County Law Library sent off subscriber renewal packets to everyone who joined us in 2010. Enclosed were all materials you or your firm would need to renew for the 2011 subscription year. If you haven’t already returned your packet to us, we urge you to do so. Your support has been invaluable to the Library’s operations. We hope you will support us again through the upcoming year so we can continue to offer you the same great service! If you haven’t yet received your packet, please contact Craig Burgess at craig.burgess@kingcounty.gov or by phone at 206-296-0940.

We’re happy to announce that we’ve added FastCase to the list of legal research databases now available in both our Seattle and Kent branches.  Our subscription includes cases and statutes from all 50 states, federal statutes and cases, links to federal and state regulatory materials and specialty databases such as IRS Revenue Rulings,  Board of Immigration Appeals, United States Tax Court and U.S. Court of Federal Claims.  It also includes access to FastCase’s Authority Check system to help you quickly locate additional decisions related to your research.

Beginning January 3, 2011, the King County Superior Court Clerk’s Office hours will be changing from 8:30-4:30 to the following:

• The office will open at 9:00 a.m.
• The office will be closed from 12:15 p.m. – 1:15 p.m. daily.

The office will continue to close for the day at 4:30 p.m. as it currently does.  eFiling will not be affected by these changes, nor will these changes impact the current practices which establish the filing date for documents or cases filed.  If you have questions, you can contact the Superior Court Clerk at 206-296-9300 or log on to their website.