In the fall of 2000, the Edward Bennett Williams Law Library passed an important milestone: acquisition of its millionth volume. The title, which will be selected this spring, is part of a collection the library recently purchased that once belonged to the English nobleman John Scott, first Earl of Eldon. As Lord Chancellor of England from 1801 to 1827, Eldon played a crucial role in the development of the law of equity. The collection, about 400 volumes in all, includes many important 16th, 17th, and 18th century manuscripts, as well as Eldon's own trial manuscripts.

Much has happened since the Edward Bennett Williams Law Library opened its doors on a bright, clear day in January 1989, transforming, almost overnight, the way that law students perceived their school. The library was then, as it is today, tangible evidence of a new level of commitment to quality and service. For two decades the library's collections had been squeezed into the second and third floors of Bernard Patrick McDonough Hall, eventually overflowing shelves and cramping study space.

When it first opened, the Williams library, with its imposing atrium and elegant, wood-paneled reading room, was half empty. Today, the library retains its elegance, although the shelves are once again crowded. During the past decade, thousands of students have spent countless hours researching topics and studying for classes within its walls. The faculty has become increasingly prolific, producing more and better scholarship, made possible in part by the library's excellent resources. The promise of the new library in 1989 has been more than met.

BUILDING THE WILLIAMS LAW LIBRARY
The opening of the new library was the fulfillment of a dream that had begun over a decade earlier, a dream that saw a distinguished library as an essential component of a top-ranked law school. That commitment to excellence was evident throughout the planning and design process, which spanned eight years.

Starting in the late 1970s, the late Professor Frank Flegel and others began to envision the campus we have today and worked tirelessly to bring it about. Then University President Timothy S. Healy and Law Center deans Robert Pitofsky and David J. McCarthy were unwavering in their commitment to building a new library. Early in 1987, ground was broken for the new building. Hartman-Cox, the architects, created a neo-classical design that would complement McDonough Hall, the main Law Center building. The 150,000-square-foot library was constructed of concrete, lightly sandblasted to even its color.

The building opened on January 9, 1989. It is named for Edward Bennett Williams (L'44) a dedicated alumnus, adjunct professor, and nationally known trial attorney. Williams served as counsel to the Law Center for almost 40 years. In the 1980s, he co-chaired the Campaign for a New Law Library, which raised $15 million and became a rallying cause among alumni. Williams and his family personally contributed nearly $4 million to the campaign. Sadly, Williams did not live to see his vision come to fruition. He died in 1988, just a few months before the library opened.

The new building reflected Williams' commitment to excellence as well as that of other University and Law Center leaders. In addition to the atrium and reading room, the Williams library has space for a computer learning center on the second floor and some 200 computer work stations throughout. There are also lounges and group study rooms on each floor, as well as 1,200 study carrels. The international law collection, for which the library was already well known, stretches over nearly the entire first floor. The rare book room, named for Father Healey, provided, as it does today, a showcase for the Law Center's extraordinary collection of rare legal treatises. From windows on the upper three floors, patrons can gaze south along New Jersey Avenue to an impressive view of the U.S. Capitol. With generous space for reading and research, the building created then, as it does today, a scholarly ambiance. Eager to match this, the library staff is continually developing new programs and services for both students and faculty.

THE COLLECTION EXPANDS
A little more than a decade ago, when the first students crossed the threshold of the Williams Library, its collections were uneven and weak in several important areas, such as state materials. Today the library's collections, which have doubled in size, range from strong to extraordinary.

During this decade of progress, the ways in which the collections are used have also evolved and new formats have appeared. With the increased presence of computers in daily life, the research skills of students, staff, and faculty have matured. Scholarship at the Law Center has become increasingly complex, interdisciplinary, and distinguished.

Since the Williams library opened, the staff has undertaken several major initiatives to expand both the breadth and depth of the collections. One has been simply adding to the number of bound volumes, both in legal fields and in law-related areas such as philosophy, ethics and social issues.

The non-print collection has grown at an even more rapid clip. Over 26,000 microform titles have been added during the same time period. These titles, as well as backfiles of serial publications, are a cost- and space-efficient means of enriching the collections for materials otherwise difficult or impossible to acquire. At the same time, the library has expanded technologically to encompass a vast array of electronic resources, from online serials to searchable databases to CD-ROM reference materials. Non-print titles - video, audio, and electronic - have almost tripled, from about 700 in 1989 to roughly 2,100 today. The majority of these new titles are electronic resources.

LEGAL TREASURES
As the library's collection has grown, certain purchases and gifts stand out for the ways in which they have enriched the quality of the Williams Library. These additions encompass areas of legal study as diverse as Native American law and 18th century trial law. Among the most significant purchases are:

• The Wyzanski Collection: a rich, mostly 20th century, jurisprudential collection, many annotated, from the library of Judge Charles Wyzanski.
• A Gentleman's Library: the private collection of a thoughtful New Jersey attorney focused on constitutional issues and a few famous trials from the 18th to the 20th centuries.
• Nazi Law: collected by a unit of the British government before and during World War II and containing a number of scarce works documenting the use of law in the Third Reich.
• Jewish law: a collection of Jewish law, comparative law, and human rights law relating to Jews, purchased from a Judaica bookseller.
• Canon law: the law collection of the seminary of the Friars of the Atonement.

Several major gifts of treatises and other materials from faculty, alumni, and others have also enriched the library's collections over the past decade. Three particularly rich donations were:

• 20th Century American Labor Library, from the collection of Howard Gamser
• Economics and Tax Policy Library of Joseph Pechman, from Mrs. Pechman
• Education and Sociology Library, from the collection of Professor Norman Birnbaum

In addition, a number of gifts of papers have laid the foundation for unique special collections of great scholarly value. These include the papers of two federal judges, John Sirica and Oliver Gasch, both of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The judges served for over 30 years, in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Donated by their widows, these papers provide the library with two unique collections, documenting the work of an important court through a key period of American history.

The library also received a notable collection of papers, books, and manuscripts pertaining to international law and peace. Originally the property of James Brown Scott and Law Center alumnus George A. Finch, experts in international law, they were given to the library by Miss Eleanor H. Finch, daughter of George Finch. The collection covers the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Treaty of Versailles, the founding and development of the Carnegie Institute for International Peace, and the early years of the American Society of International Law, as well as other international activities in which the two men were instrumental. Miss Finch was herself a life member of ASIL and assistant editor emeritus of the American Journal of International Law. She died in 1999.

Yet another significant gift brought the litigation files of Israel S. Weissbrodt and Abe W. Weissbrodt, attorneys for Indian tribes in many trials before the Indian Claims Commission. The files were donated by the estate of Israel S. Weissbrodt, Abe W. Weissbrodt, and David Weissbrodt and provide rare insight into the way in which America has dealt with issues related to Native Americans.

TECHNOLOGY MAKES ITS MARK
Technology has transformed almost every aspect of library services at the Williams library as at libraries everywhere. The development of electronic legal resources, including Lexis, WestLaw, and many Web-based services, has had consequences for legal research and for the library. First and foremost it puts access to substantial intellectual resources directly on the scholar's desktop, wherever that desktop might be. This change has extended the reach of the library's services from the library building to the dorm, faculty offices, and even homes. The accessibility of these electronic resources allows the library to reduce the number of its subscriptions, conserving both space and funds.

Just as significantly for the University and the Law Center, electronic resources have been the catalyst for the development of important shared collections with the Lauinger Library on the main campus. There are now almost 40 Web-based services that the two libraries share. Each institution has realized substantial cost savings, and each has been able to provide access to more information for their users than would otherwise be possible.

Technology has had a major impact on the library's circulation system as well. Within a year of moving into its new building, the library finished barcoding its collection and began to use the new circulation module of its integrated online library system. Use of the new module allowed the library staff to automate the circulation of reserve and open collection materials to students and faculty and to track materials at all times. Faculty members can use the system to identify materials to be routed to them. Students are able to find their own records online and view the items they have checked out, cancel any holds or requests, renew checked-out items, and verify accumulating fines. At the turn of the century, new Web-based "Millennium" software was installed, creating an even more sophisticated circulation system.

In addition to subscribing to numerous databases, the library expanded its access to the universe of electronic information in several other important ways. For instance, in 1995 and 1996, the library installed a server to handle the vast array of information available over the World Wide Web. It was the first Web server at the Law Center. Work stations placed throughout the library in 1997 and 1998 enable library users to connect to the Web and to numerous other research databases. At these "Voyager" work stations, students can search GULLiver, the library's online catalog, conduct research on Lexis and WestLaw, search commercial journals and document indexes, and print out or download documents.

The library also uses technology to deliver special services to students and faculty. Keeping current with the latest publishing is now as easy as clicking on a link. Within the past year, the library's new book acquisitions list was set up to appear twice a month on the Georgetown University Legal Explorer, the library's starting point for legal research on the Web. Software enables a faculty member to tag interesting new library materials and request that they be routed to him or her. The Current Index to Legal Periodicals was set up to appear weekly, with a similar built-in request function. Current awareness alert services (Smart CILP, UnCover Reveal, and the Legal Scholarship Network) routinely search for citations tailored to faculty members' research interests and then deliver them to the appropriate e-mail boxes. Students and faculty alike go on the Web to request books through an automated inter-library loan system.

The library plans to continue to make use of the opportunities presented by advances in technology as they occur. Some anticipated areas of growth include developing new Web-based services for faculty and students; providing more unique content on the Web server; carrying out a digital preservation initiative; enriching the database that supports GULLiver; and renewing the hardware and software infrastructure as finances permit.

A GROWING COMMITMENT TO SERVICE
With the opening of the Edward Bennett Williams Library, it became possible to inaugurate a new and stronger commitment to service. For the first several years after moving into the building, the pace of this growth was astounding-25 percent annually. Much of the growth in services was due to the expanded use of technology. Although the increase in new services has leveled off somewhat, students have consistently given the library a 90 percent plus satisfaction rating for its services.

One of the most significant increases in service has been in educational programming. Soon after moving into the new building, the library decided to respond to a need among students for more training, in both traditional legal research and in rapidly developing electronic services. By re-engineering one of the reference librarian's jobs to focus on educational services, the library developed a broad array of educational offerings.

As part of its educational offerings, the library also developed a partnership with several librarians from local law firms to create a popular workshop for prospective summer associates. Each April, on a Saturday morning, librarians and first- and second-year law students gather for presentations and hands-on exercises on topics such as administrative law research and legislative history. In the early days, these students departed with a handful of useful tip sheets and phone numbers; now the librarians have created a Web site to complement the program. Already receiving rave reviews, the Web site includes electronic versions of the hand-outs and adds more specific research guides as well as links to many other resources. Perhaps most importantly, the site serves as a way for Law Center students to communicate easily with expert librarians.

With the success of its student services, the library next turned its attention to further developing its already strong faculty support. Again by re-focusing one of its reference librarians on the area, the library has been able to provide faculty with more personalized service. With the help of the dean's office, which supplied the library with several research assistants, the library has taken on the coordination of innumerable faculty research projects, all guided and directed by an experienced legal reference librarian. Statistics show that about 75 percent of the faculty make use of this service. By taking advantage of electronic formats - e-mail and the Web - the library streamlined document delivery. This service now helps faculty members to incorporate electronic documents into their own course Web sites.

With the Web often serving as the primary starting point for legal research, new demands on librarians' skills have developed. In order to help faculty and students make intelligent decisions about the staggering volume of information available on the Web, librarians have created research guides and topical Web pages. These guides integrate the use of both print and electronic resources and cover topics of particular interest to legal scholars.

SAVING FRAGILE DOCUMENTS
For over a decade the Georgetown University Law Library has been able to boast of having one of the few conservation departments in academic law libraries. Georgetown has continued to lead other law libraries in conservation by designing a fully equipped conservation lab, on the library's second floor, that allows for advanced levels of book repair. The Law Center is also a leader in developing a comprehensive preservation program for the general collection, the special collections, and archives.

With its commitment to and experience with preservation, the library is able to treat its research collections in the most appropriate way to ensure their long life and future availability. The conservation program enables the library to respond to larger preservation issues affecting the collection as a whole, instead of reacting to each individual book as it falls apart.

A perfect example of the program in action is the Historic State Codes Preservation Project. Since 1997, the library has been preservation photocopying (reprinting on permanent paper) the state codes printed between 1840 and 1930 for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Books printed during this era are vulnerable to crumbling paper and bindings; because of the fragility of these books, loss of historic information is inevitable unless steps are taken to preserve it. Over the last three years, the library has preserved books from 26 jurisdictions, including the District of Columbia, Virginia, Maryland, and California. The effort encompasses over 450 titles.

The goal for this project is to have multiple preservation collections of these materials located across the country. Currently, two other academic law libraries have purchased complete sets, and several other libraries have purchased sets for individual states. Participating libraries are also contributing titles that Georgetown does not own in an effort to build the most complete preservation collection possible. In the future, as part of a larger digital initiative, the library hopes to make these titles available electronically, in a searchable format. Other digital initiatives for preservation include the imaging of unique materials housed in the library's special collections and archives, such as Georgetown Law Weekly, the student newspaper; video performances of the Gilbert & Sullivan Society; the photographic archives; and significant manuscript collections.

THE INTERNATIONAL LAW COLLECTION
Just as international law is a major focus of the Law Center curriculum, it is also a significant area within the library. The Law Center's Washington, D.C., location, only a few blocks from the Library of Congress, has allowed the Williams Library to direct its international law resources to particular areas rather than attempting to collect the whole world.

The library builds and maintains excellent collections of public and private international law to assist scholarly research as well as to prepare students to practice in the global legal environment. The interests of the global community are reflected in collections of international trade and economic law, international arbitration, international environmental law, human rights and refugee law, and international taxation-to name just a few. As international organizations have gained increasing influence in world affairs, the library has developed extensive collections of documents from agencies such as the World Trade Organization, the United Nations, the European Union, and several human rights organizations.

The library has increasingly sought to offer faculty and students access to a wide array of information related to international law in electronic format as well, including subscriptions to a number of significant international databases. Many of these databases can be used remotely.

Librarians at the Law Center have also worked with faculty to create several unique Web products. For example, over the years, Law Center librarians have worked with the Center for Applied Legal Studies (CALS) to create a student handbook for research and have conducted in-depth research classes. Recently, this relationship developed further when the librarians and the CALS faculty created a Web asylum research guide for use by students as well as those who practice asylum law.

As information technology continues to evolve, the library expects to take advantage of new developments to further enhance international legal research and scholarship. One possibility is to create or make available on the Web an electronic collection of international legal documents that would include both a facility for full-text searching and a corresponding document image, a necessary component to ensure document authentication and citation. These kinds of projects are of enormous value for both research and preservation purposes. Other projects might include working collaboratively with the faculty to better integrate international legal resources into scholarship through course Web pages and other interactive technologies.

THE ERIC HOTUNG INTERNATIONAL LAW CENTER BUILDING
As the collection has expanded and electronic resources have stepped up the need for computer research stations, the Williams library, once half empty, has filled to the brim. Over the last few years, the library staff has taken steps to conserve space, reducing titles that are accessible in electronic format and eliminating unnecessary seating.

The library has also been exploring the possibility of moving parts of the collection to offsite storage areas, a relatively inexpensive solution to crowded shelves. But it has become apparent that one of the best solutions to the shortage of space would be to house the international collection separately. Just recently, two important events have made this possible. Two years ago, the Law Center purchased property at the corner of F Street and New Jersey Avenue, adjacent to the Gewirz Student Center. The property completes the Law Center Campus, giving it three contiguous city blocks.

Then, last fall, a generous donor, Eric Hotung (C'51), father of Anthony Hotung (L'95), pledged $5 million for a building to house the Law Center's international program. Currently in the planning stage, this building will include space for the Williams Library's international collection. By bringing all the Law Center's international resources under one roof, the Eric Hotung International Law Center building will facilitate scholarship in the field.

MAINTAINING A TRADITION OF INNOVATION
In the years since the library moved into the Edward Bennett Williams Library, it has flourished. Collections have grown; the use of Lexis, WestLaw, CD-ROMs, and the World Wide Web have changed the way legal research is done; new service programs have helped students and faculty with their research and scholarship.

Of course, libraries are always looking to the future, seeking ways to improve and to meet new challenges. The Williams Library has just completed a new long-range plan that makes several major recommendations. The library will continue to preserve fragile historical documents and to develop its collections of print and non-print materials. At the same time, it foresees an even greater integration of Web-based initiatives into library programs. To resolve issues of space, the library will most likely develop some offsite storage in the short run. In the long term, it is eager to consolidate the international collection with the international academic program in the Eric Hotung International Law building.

The library takes great pride in providing first-class, innovative services to the Law Center community, to alumni, and to the larger legal community. It expects to continue this tradition of innovation and excellent service far into the future. Though much has changed, the library remains at the heart of the research process. The challenge for the future is to remain flexible and responsive to change, while managing an expanding collection and providing research support.

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