Services and Hours

Clientele and Collections

CJCL serves the Justices and staff of the California Supreme Court and the California Court of Appeal, First Appellate District; and the staff of the Administrative Office of the Courts. Members of these groups comprise CJCL's primary clientele.

CJCL's collections contain more than 200,000 volumes, including all Federal and California primary legal resources and major secondary legal resources. Law reviews and journals of California and other major law schools are available in the library's main collections.

Special Collections/Archives

Special Collections/Archives at CJCL collects the personal papers and other memorabilia of past and present California Supreme Court justices and other notable legal scholars, as well as the archives of the California Supreme Court Historical Society. Special Collections/Archives is open to researchers upon approval of written request. Requests should be submitted to: California Judicial Center Library, Attention: Special Collections at the address below, or to Archives@jud.ca.gov.

Hours of Service

The library is open 24/7 to its primary clientele, but is not open to the public. Staff services are available Monday through Friday from 8:00 am until 5:00 pm (except State holidays) and by request. Please contact CJCL for additional information, by email to reference@jud.ca.gov or phone, 415-865-7178.

Services

CJCL services to justices and staff include:

Research and reference services.
Collection development, including acquisition of suggested or recommended titles.
Library orientations and tours.
Bibliographic instruction and training in the use of online and other published information resources.
Interlibrary loan.
Online research databases, including LexisNexis and Westlaw.
Maintenance and updating of chambers and central collections.

Research and Reference Services staff will, whenever feasible, direct other users to resources available to them in their geographic areas.

Library Catalog

CJCL's online Library Catalog provides Web and desktop access to the CJCL's collections, with links to significant online legal resources. The Library Catalog also contains the holdings of the libraries of the Second and Sixth Appellate Districts.

California Supreme Court and Court of Appeal Database

The California Supreme Court and Courts of Appeal Database of approximately 3,500 searchable records contains:

Summary data, including appointment date, year of birth/death, court(s) and division(s) served, for all past and present justices of the California Supreme Court and Courts of Appeal.
Inventories or collection-level records for holdings in Special Collections/Archives..
Records of transcripts of oral history interviews of more than 80 justices of the Courts of Appeal. Data in the records includes general contents notes, index terms, interview participants, interview date, and pagination.
All records in the database are searchable by keyword.