Shelves coming down at state law library Thursday, May 7, 2020

The end of an era came on Wednesday, May 6, 2020 when the last of the books were pulled from the North Dakota State Law Library and most of the shelving came down.

In preparation for this day, assistant law librarian Paula Amelsberg had discarded 67,411 books from the collection before the pandemic halted progress on the project. She was helped by Catie Palsgraaf, North Dakota Legal Self-Help Center Director.

Amelsberg's work was picked up by a team comprised of Marilyn Moe, Sandy Schwan, and Lana Zimmerman who spent more than two weeks packing up the remaining books, so that the scheduled remodeling of the library space can proceed. With the added assistance of volunteer Tucker Howe the team was able to pack more than 500 boxes of books in two days. 

The books will be held in temporary storage until the sorting process can resume.

The State Law Library is being renovated into a shared workspace that will include a mostly-electronic law library, Central Legal staff, the Self-Help Center, and the Judicial Branch technology department. The renovation is expected to be completed by November.