The Baltimore Bar Library
The Library Company of the Baltimore Bar, better known as
the Bar Library, is located on the sixth floor of the Clarence
Mitchell, Jr. Courthouse. Established in 1840 as a membership
library by forty-four attorneys, the Bar Library
is one of the oldest dues supported law libraries in the
country. A combination of both the old and the new, the Bar
Library contains cases, statutes and treatises
dating back hundreds of years as well as an
extensive collection of CD ROMs and
Internet subscriptions. The showplace of the Courthouse, the
Main Reading Room is thirty-five feet wide by one hundred and
twenty-five feet long and is elegantly crowned with a barrel
vault ceiling. A rich oak wainscot rises to a height of
fifteen feet and extends entirely around the room.
The woodwork of the shelves and wall paneling is lustrous English oak,
trimmed with a classic carved border of rosettes, laurel and
egg-and-dart embellishments.
