Hamilton County Commissioners voted on Wednesday to approve the Tennessee General Assembly repealing an act from the 1960’s in order to create an electronic law library.
County Attorney Rheubin Taylor said this was requested by the local legislative delegation. He said the physical library has been mostly unused for the last few years, and the judges who oversee it have asked to transform it into an electronic library that can be used by the public, judges and attorneys.
“It allows them to do a paperless and electronic public library,” attorney Taylor said when Commissioner David Sharpe asked for clarification. Commissioner Sharpe then voiced his support for this resolution.
Commissioner Greg Martin asked about the costs of doing this, and attorney Taylor said the county would cover the cost. The attorney told the commission that the county allocates some funds to the physical library, and those funds can be transferred over to the proposed electronic library. The attorney said the library costs around $2,500 a year to maintain, and an electronic library would save money.
County finance director Lee Brouner said the physical law library does collect about $14,000 in revenue through litigation tax per year,
“That law library has a fund balance of $92,000 that goes toward operating a law library,” Mr. Brouner said. “So that $92,000 plus any revenue stream should be sufficient to cover the cost for several years of an online law library.”
He told the commission that the county already has the software that is available and loaded onto computers, but this fact has not been advertised. He said the cost of this was around $20,000 at most, so he said he did not believe the cost would be “significant.”
“Currently we’d be losing about $9,000 a year, so we’ve got at least 10 years of operation with that fund,” Mr. Brouner said.
“We’ve been trying to plow the field with the 1967 plow instead of the 21st century way of getting the job done, so you’d think we’d have a whole lot more activity,” Commissioner Martin said, “So I’d be good with it.”
The Commission voted unanimously to approve this resolution.