History
The historical roots of the Law Library go back to 1838, when Act No. 93 of the state legislature called for the creation of a State Library to be housed in the State House, located in New Orleans. The Secretary of State was appointed to be in charge of the library, which was open to all state residents, but books only circulated to legislators. One of the duties of the Secretary of State was to print and distribute Louisiana law materials, such as the Civil Code and state acts. Eventually the Law Library became associated with the Louisiana Supreme Court and was housed with the Court. The Law Library changed locations numerous times since 1838 and now has returned to a previous location at 400 Royal Street in New Orleans, where the library and the Louisiana Supreme Court were located from 1910-1958.
Specialties
The library's particular strength is its comprehensive collection of current and historical Louisiana legal materials. The collection includes: Current statutes and superseded Louisiana statute volumes since the mid-1970s, including superseded pocket parts Current and historical digests Louisiana practice materials All historical pamphlet versions of the Civil Code, Code of Civil Procedure, Statutory Criminal Law and Procedure, and state and federal court rules Current and historical Louisiana Supreme Court reports Historical Louisiana legal treatises The Law Library offers free Westlaw to the public, available on two of the six public terminals, as well as Lexis Advance on one terminal and FastCase on all terminals. Other databases available for use at the library include: Hein Online, Gale Legal Forms, LegalTrac, Gale's 19th Century Newspapers,Newsbank's historical Louisiana newspaper collection, and ProQuest Congressional, which contains Congressional publications.