November 5, 2007

Dear Library Patron(s):

Allegheny County Law Library (ACLL), by the state statutory mandate, is a public law library open to any person who wishes to use it. As such, ACLL provides many free services that include access to the library facilities of both ACLL and Duquesne University Center for Legal Information (DCLI), the online catalog, the Internet, online Shepard's Citations, Westlaw’s KeyCite, HeinOnline, other online legal information services, and federal government documents. The library also has a convenient computer lab with twenty computers accessible to the public for use. In addition, free on-site and telephone reference services are also provided. 

During these past three years, we also included access to Lexis and Westlaw for primary resources (Federal, all states, and Pennsylvania) for library-card holders.

Because the regular funding sources are limited and the costs for acquiring and maintaining legal information resources are constantly rising (currently updates are increasing approximately 10% each year), many of the public law libraries in the larger metropolitan areas have been charging their users for certain value-added services in order to meet the needs of all their users.  The ACLL is no exception.

During this past year, we would like you to know that:

• West Reporter System costs more than $40,000 a year to purchase all court reports.
• PBI publications cost more than $15,000 a year.
• Practising Law Institute publications cost more than $14,000 a year.
• Online subscriptions cost more than $50,000 a year

In 2002, we implemented the existing fee schedule that has not been raised in the past six years. During this time:

• Subscription costs for treatises have increased at least 5% to 15% per year.
• Lexis and Westlaw subscriptions cost more than 80% of the income derived from circulation fees.
• Income derived from filing fees has decreased more than $50,000 a year.
• County contributions have not increased in eight years since we implemented the partnership.
• Income derived from circulation fees has remained fairly constant over the five-year period
• Other county law libraries in 2008 will charge from $65 per year (Hennepin County, Minneapolis) to $125 for Jenkins Law Library (Philadelphia) for individual library cards regardless of the size of the firm, making us one of the lowest charging libraries in the country.

Based on our expenditures and the need to maintain our paper collections and electronic subscriptions, we are forced to increase our circulation fees for the next two years as follows:

	2008	2009
Solo or Small Firms Under 30	$45.00	$60.00
Law Firms 31-60	$1,500	$2,000
Law Firms 61-100	$3,000	$4,000
Law Firms 101+	$4,500	$6,000

With these new fees, borrowers can check out materials from both the ACLL and DCLI collections.   However, all fees collected will be used for improving the library operations of the ACLL.

The ACLL is an invaluable asset for the Allegheny County community. Under the new management, DCLI has made dramatic improvements to its operations and services in the past six years. We invite you and the members of your organization to use this fine facility and support its continuing growth and improvement for the use of the citizens of Allegheny County.

Sincerely yours,

Frank Y. Liu,
Director and Professor of Law

Joel Fishman, Ph.D.
Assistant Director for Lawyer Services

 

The Borrowers' Application Form is available in PDF format. The free Adobe Acrobat Reader must be downloaded and installed as a browser plug-in to open PDF documents. Click on the appropriate link to download the documents.

If you have any questions concerning this new arrangement, please call Dr. Joel Fishman or Paul Recht at (412) 350-5353.