Viewing Libraries Category (5) found:

State Law Librarians, 1849-2012.

The state law librarians who have served since 1849 are listed here.

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Elias J. Lien (1868 -1932).

Elias Lien was assistant state law librarian from 1904 to 1911 when he was promoted to be state law librarian. He held that post for a decade, resigning to practice law. He died at age sixty-three on February 10, 1932.

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Douglas A. Hedin: "West Publishing Company Edits the Opinions of the Minnesota Supreme Court" (2013).

West Publishing Company began publishing the regional Northwestern Reporter in 1879. Each volume contained the decisions of the Supreme Courts of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, Nebraska and Dakota. Beginning with Volume 41, appearing in 1889, West reformatted the courts' decisions by eliminating most indentations of paragraphs that were in the originals. In other words, it compressed the opinions into a few long, ungainly paragraphs that stretched over columns and pages.

This short article focuses on how West compressed and edited the decisions of the Minnesota Supreme Court to fit the Northwestern Reporter.

The subject is obscure and technical, and will interest only students of nineteenth century law book publishing, a few law librarians and, perhaps, future historians of the company.

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Report of MSBA Library Committee (1905).

At the annual convention of the Minnesota State Bar Association in 1905, the Library Committee submitted a report and recommendations about the State Library. It noted that the library held about 48,000 books, and that it was increasing its holdings of "statutes and reports of all civilized countries." This was important because the state had adopted foreign laws--as for example, the form of ballot and the Torrens system of land registration from Australia. Following the pleas of the state librarian, the Committee recommended that he be appointed to an indefinite term by the supreme court rather than two years by the governor, and that two additional assistant librarians be hired.

Two years earlier, the legislature enacted a law making many changes to the State Library, and these were noted in the report. The annual appropriation for the purchase of books increased from $2,000 to $4,000. While the legislature authorized the librarian and the justices to buy books "as they may deem best," it also mandated very specific duties of the librarian--as for example, that he maintain a ledger of acquisitions by the library, including a "list of the books lost" during the past year.

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Advertisement for Supreme Court Reports. (1863).

In January 1863, the "Saint Paul Pioneer" carried an advertisement for five volumes of the "Supreme Court Reports of Minnesota." The books included cases decided by the Territorial Supreme Court, from 1851 to 1858, and decisions of the state Supreme Court from the November 1858 special term through the regular July 1861 term.

This appears to be the first time decisions of the Court were collected and published by a commercial printer for purchase by the legal profession.

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