Here’s the story as reported by the Recorder, unsurprisingly users are furious…….
Along with the marble, brass and wooden fixtures that were updated in the transition from the 1930s Franklin County Courthouse to the Franklin County Justice Center that opened last month, the law library has given way to a smaller space with far fewer volumes.
That culling of the library’s volumes has some residents irate enough to launch a petition drive in protest — even though, according to those behind the effort, three truckloads of law books, comprising 86 percent of the 200-year-old law book collection, were shredded weeks ago.
Lisa Hoag, a Wendell graphic designer who says she “adored the old law library” — and whose contents she is adamant are the property of the people of Massachusetts — says she has been working feverishly to see the public made aware of what she says has been the shredding of public property without public consent.
“Any person should have the right to consult law books,” said Hoag.
The MoveOn.org petition that Hoag started on March 14 — with more than 100 signatures to date — calls on the governor, attorney general, area legislators and court officials to “help us protect and preserve the legacy of our historic law books” and see that “no more of our books should be destroyed, now or in the future.”
The petition claims that “hundreds of books worth thousands of dollars were destroyed,” and states that the destruction has also taken place at other county law libraries.
Vincent Gillespie of Greenfield, one of the petitioners, said he’s used the law libraries for years to do research as a private citizen and calls the state’s arguments that the law libraries are seldom used and that materials are easily available online “a whitewash. Even if they’re available online, it’s just not the same,” he said. “They seem to be anti-book. It’s a lot easier to have a physical book in front of you. There’s a pattern of trying to get rid of books around the state.”
According to Gillespie, the library collection was reduced from 4,000 linear feet from the old courthouse to 2,000 in its temporary space and was further reduced to 600 square feet in the new justice center. That change was made at least in part to accommodate creation of a more heavily-used consumer service center in the new courthouse.
Franklin County Law Librarian Kathy Ludwig declined to comment for the record, but Maria Fournier, director of Support Services for the Massachusetts Trial Court, said the use of law libraries around the state has been down.
“Our priority was to keep as many law libraries open as possible, but as you can imagine, the utilization over the last few years in each of the sites really wasn’t what it was years ago,” said Fournier, who said that circulation statistics and foot traffic was used to decide which of the libraries to keep open.
Only 11 books were checked out in January from the temporary Munson Street location, with only four in-person patrons, and only six books checked out last September, for example.
Recognizing that this area has the highest concentration of clients representing themselves, the law library has a couple of computer terminals to access online materials, which Fournier said are widely used.
“A lot of the material is now available online,” she said. “When I walked the space, there was quite a bit of materials that was just outdated. There’s all kinds of updates to all of these editions, so I think it’s a real disservice to put on the shelves something that’s no longer valid law.”
Ludwig — who Fournier says consulted with the Franklin County Bar Association — weighed which printed materials are available at other libraries or online, how much each are used, and inquired whether there was interest by other libraries to take any “antique books.”
Fournier said none of the very old books were destroyed but placed in storage or found homes, and that Ludwig didn’t feel it was worthwhile to make the removed volumes available elsewhere in the courthouse.
Franklin County Register of Probate and Family Court John F. Merrigan, who had advocated that Franklin County become home of one of the state’s first two court service centers, says those centers provide a more effective way of getting people the information they need. Fournier said 85 percent of people doing legal research in the courthouse make use of the service center, which is purposely located in a larger, ground-level space.
Merrigan said the center draws an average of 20 to 25 people a day, some of them coming from outside the region, for help in finding and filling out the proper court forms and finding their way to appropriate services and legal help.
“It’s not like we’re starved for resources,” Merrigan said. “A lot of the information that was once in books is available online. The customer service centers are a priority.”
Franklin County Bar Association President Timothy Flynn said his biggest gripe with the setup was a delay in getting computer terminals, but that he’s an advocate of the court service centers.
The vast majority of the area’s lawyers, who may have once depended more heavily on bound volumes in the law library, have turned increasingly to online resources, which are available in the library and the service center, he said.
There are some exceptions, like Greenfield lawyer John Stobierski, who said, “I’m not happy with the way the state de-emphasized and reduced the collection significantly. When you’re in the middle of a court proceeding and you have to put your fingers on a case real quick, you could run into the library, bring a book into court and say, ‘Here’s the case,’ and everybody could read it. I’m a book guy. It’s about having a few books open and being able to go back and forth.”
But with a limited amount of space in the new justice center, said Greenfield lawyer Isaac Mass, the new court service center “is serving more people, and you’re getting more access to justice as a result. Any single book that was available in the library is still available,” even if it takes a little longer to get it from another library.
Still, Hoag says she and others have tracked down where books were shredded.
Article 11 of the Massachusetts Constitution says that “Every subject of the Commonwealth ought to … obtain right and justice freely, and without being obligated to purchase it; completely, and without delay.”
Hoag’s created an email address for people to contact her at saveourlawbooks@gmail.com and her petition is online at bit.ly/2nP4wCD.
http://www.recorder.com/Some-angry-that-new-law-library-has-fewer-books-8819790
