BANGOR – Few outside the legal community know that a third of the top floor of the Penobscot County Courthouse is devoted to a law library.

But on sturdy shelves high over Hammond Street rest the tomes that contain the law attorneys base their arguments on and judges depend on as they dispense justice.

While there is at least one law library in every courthouse in the state, the Cleaves Law Library in Portland and the Penobscot County Law Library are the two comprehensive collections that serve large geographic regions.

The law library in Bangor contains more than 15,000 volumes essential to the hundreds of lawyers who work out of offices in downtown Bangor and surrounding counties.

“It provides basic essential legal material that I use primarily for cases in federal court,” Brett Baber, a Bangor lawyer, said recently. “So much is available over the Internet now, but sometimes I just like to hit the stacks and read case law in hard copy rather than online.”

The library also is used by members of the public, including students at Husson College, University College of Bangor and the University of Maine.

Maine Supreme Judicial Court Justice Paul Rudman, whose office is on the third floor of the courthouse, also is a frequent visitor.

Twice a week Cpl. Donna Downing makes the trek from the Penobscot County Jail to the law library. The corrections officer at the jail picks up and returns books for inmates who are either representing themselves or want to learn more about the justice system.

Judy Bennett, state court library supervisor, functions as the librarian four days a week. The fifth day, she’s on the road checking on other libraries around the state. Trained as a paralegal, she has worked at the library for 16 years.

During that time, Bennett has decreased the number of books purchased to pay for online research services like Westlaw, a key site for topics in business law, criminal justice and paralegal studies and treatises that include analysis of recent decisions in specialty areas of the law such as education, trademark and patent, labor and real estate.

Bennett said that while the number of attorneys using the library might have decreased over the years because of expanded online services, the public is using the library more often. Many people come to the law library after they fail to find what they need at their local public library.

Typically, the law libraries around the state were founded and run by local bar associations. It is unclear exactly when the Penobscot County Law Library was founded, but it is believed to be more than 100 years old.

The state began providing financial support for the libraries in the 1970s, and in 1981 the Legislature created a statewide system of law libraries. Local bar associations, however, still are required to oversee the administration of the law libraries and provide funds.

State funding for the entire system was flat-funded for 12 years at $200,000 annually, then cut two years ago by $20,000, according to Bennett. Over those years, the cost of books rose dramatically.

The regional law library at the Penobscot County Courthouse receives about $24,000 a year from the state for books, computers, copiers and equipment. It also receives $6,000 to $8,000 from the local bar association. That includes funding from the endowment and $15,000 to $18,000 a year from the State Court Library Committee to purchase books and online research services.

Included among the materials in Bangor are all current Maine statutes and those going back to 1852, current legislative documents, legislative records and legislative committee reports, state agency regulations and all opinions of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. Copies of the briefs filed in every case argued before the state’s high court for the past 20 years are available on microfiche.

Other materials include all U.S. Supreme Court opinions, dating to 1815, the National Reporter System, which prints all decisions of state appellate courts, legal encyclopedias, federal laws, federal tax regulations, the Internal Revenue Service code, plus numerous treatises on aspects of the law.

The library is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. when the Penobscot County Courthouse is open.