Publication Title

Washington Law Review

Document Type

Article

Abstract

Bibliomania is a rare disease. Contrary to popular belief, the germ breeds, not on ancient vellum bookbindings, but on the inside pages of hard-to-locate, bound or unbound, published or unpublished, material. Consequently, the infection is not apt to spread to the practicing attorney who has too many clients and too many cases for a seven-day week. While it may be the secret hope of every librarian that years of exposure (to the bindings when help is scarce, to the inside pages when help is plentiful) will cause him to become infected, he does not lose sight of the fact that the rate of immunity among lawyers is extremely high. He knows that as a class they are more interested in having Shepard's citator and the Washington advance sheets within reach than in examining a book of which there are only two other extant copies.

Recent displays of amazement by attorneys who have visited the University of Washington Law Library, lead us to suspect that the local bar is not as well informed about our facilities as it might be. Of course the best remedy for this is a tour of the library; the next best, and seemingly more practical, is a short report with information as its object, coupled with an invitation to the bar to test its truth. This is not the place for an historical account. As a general rule, a librarian's "History of the Library" is, like the sex of the zoo's youngest rhinoceros, of interest only to another rhinoceros. But the comparative position of a library, in terms of size; is a measurement that can mean something concrete to its potential patrons. The University law library, with approximately 101,500 bound volumes, is outranked by only three libraries west of the Mississippi. Among law school libraries in the west, it holds first place, and ranks 10th in the nation. This, we believe, is cause for some pride. Yet it is of less importance than the type of services we are able to offer to our faculty, students, and members of the legal profession.

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