Montana State Library Digital Collection Of Current and Historic Montana Law Means More Access and Research Possibilities

• December 27 2022

The Montana State Library recently partnered with the State Law Library and Legislative Branch to digitize hundreds of historic print volumes of Montana law:

• Law, Memorial, and Resolutions of the Territory of Montana, 7^th Session 1871-1872
• Revised statutes of the territory of Montana, 1879
• Compiled statutes of Montana 15^th Legislative Assembly 1887
• Revised Codes of Montana 1907-1947
• Montana Code Annotated 1978-2021
• Annotations to the Montana Code Annotated 2002-2020

This new online collection delivers all the qualities traditional print readers love: the look and ease of print navigation minus the negatives: torn pages, missing copies, coffee stains, pencil marks from previous users, and having to physically travel to a library. Not a minor inconvenience in our geographically big state since only a handful of Montana libraries have law books.

Power users will like the new full-text search capabilities. Imagine locating every instance in current and past Montana law on any topic, e.g., “coal”, “cattle”, “dancing”, “influenza” or whatever. For low vision/blind users, it means access for the first time to audio files of state law. Pro se litigants and lawyers are spared costly purchase of print copies. Ultimately everyone benefits from greater access to and knowledge of the laws that govern them. Lastly, this new collection appears to align with the U.S. Supreme Court opinion, Banks v. Manchester, 128 U.S. 244 (1888): "The authentic exposition and interpretation of the law, which, binding every citizen, is free for publication to all, whether it is a declaration of unwritten law, or an interpretation of a constitution or a statute."

Browse the new collection here. Questions? Comments? Please contact Jim Kammerer, Government Information Librarian, at (406) 444-5432 or via e-mail at jkammerer@mt.gov.