COMMITTEE SPOTLIGHT

Check Out the Harris County Law Library

By DANIEL F. SHANK

The Harris County Law Library was founded in 1913 and purchased its initial collection of eight major sets of books in 1914 for $2,400. Today, it has grown to over 100,000 volumes and volume equivalents and is one of the largest and finest collections of printed and electronic legal materials in Harris County.
The Harris County Law Library also has a collection of State Bar CLE materials, as well as law review articles, treatises and loose leaf materials covering a large number of legal topics. It also has computerized technology for research activities. If you are having trouble finding the right legal research materials, the Harris County Law Library is an excellent resource. As trial lawyers know, if you need to do some rush research when you are at the Harris County Courthouse Complex, the Harris County Law Library is a great asset, with its location on the top floor of the Jury Assembly Building at 1019 Congress.
The Harris County Law Library can also help when you are having trouble finding materials with adequate background or depth in your legal research. The library is fully computerized, both its internal operations and its public services. A dedicated and trained staff is available to provide research support to all people who use the library. While the Harris County Law Library’s primary purpose is to serve the legal profession, it also serves the public at large.
The rapid maturing of technology presents a problem not only to libraries and librarians, but also to library patrons. Not everything is available on the Internet, and only a small percentage of information available may be relevant, credible and timely. When sifting the useful from the erroneous and irrelevant, the Harris County Law Library can be a great asset.
The library’s hours are 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. on weekdays and 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Saturdays. The Web site is www.co.harris.tx.us/hcll. The Web site includes a catalog and basic legal research for Texas and Federal law.
The Houston Bar Association’s County Law Library Committee, possibly the association’s oldest committee, has supported the library since its inception. When the association was founded in 1870, part of the HBA’s mission was to establish a law library. The current committee’s mission is to review the library’s facilities and materials, and to make recommendations to the HBA board on how the association can serve the library.
If you have never visited the Harris County Law Library, the HBA County Law Library Committee invites you to take a few moments and check it out the next time you are downtown at the Harris County Courthouse Complex.

Daniel F. Shank practices with the firm of Coats Rose. He is chair of the HBA County Law Library Committee.

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