Наукові праці Національної бібліотеки України імені В.І. Вернадського (Jan 2020)
The Experience of Legal Informing in the Globalized World (Case of US Public Law Libraries)
Abstract
The article examines the experience of US public law libraries. The systematic nature of the activities of US public law libraries has been demonstrated. The main purpose of their work is to assist individuals who self-represent themselves in court and try to resolve domestic legal issues. It is emphasized that the effectiveness of legal service practices in the Ukrainian libraries could be greatly enhanced with the introduction of world-wide experience of the United States public law libraries and the formation of own legal communication practices appropriate to the democratic process. The activities of US public law libraries have a deep historical tradition. Public law libraries have been found to operate according to a typical algorithm and have minor differences due to the peculiarities of their location. Traditionally, public law libraries offer free consultation with lawyers, providing certain administrative services based on public law libraries. The overall mission of US legal public libraries is to provide free access to legal information to the judiciary, state and county officials, and members of the State Bar Association. The main users of public law libraries are members of the county legal community and its residents. Almost all public law libraries in the United States provide assistance to legal users, including those who represent themselves in the courts. This service is a self-help resource in the civil library, the Civil Self-Help Center, which provides limited legal assistance in qualifying civil cases to non-lawyers. The experience of large foreign library institutions in the field of information and legal services has shown that today the activity of public law libraries keeps up with the deepening of the content of legal relations in modern society as a whole and is a link in addressing the existing objective to operate a powerful legal system.
