By Lydia X. McCoy, Evansville Courier & Press
EVANSVILLE - The clerk's library, where the public can access court records for free, will remain open.
Beginning Jan. 2, four public computers, one of which will be handicapped accessible, will be available in the library, although there will no longer be a full-time librarian.
Tim VanCleave, the Vanderburgh County court system's executive IT director, said he didn't know where the two additional computers now in the room will go.
It previously was announced that the library would be closing permanently Dec. 23 and that the public would have to look up records for criminal and civil cases online using a service called Doxpop.
The Richmond, Ind., firm already posts court records online in 47 Indiana counties, including Warrick, Gibson, Spencer and Pike.
VanCleave said they always were planning where to put the computers allow the public to also search court information at the courthouse.
"We hadn't had the opportunity to talk with the building authority yet, and we didn't want to go out and say we're going to put them here or there," he said. "We didn't want to make promises we wouldn't be able to keep."
VanCleave said the county has been looking for years at a way to make court records available outside of business hours.
Using Doxpop, which is supported by subscription users, the public will be able to access limited information on current open cases, as well as the court calendar for any given day or week without a subscription.
Subscribers will have access to complete case details, advanced searching and automatic notifications.
Vanderburgh County currently has information on all public cases filed from January 2005 to the present and is updating information every 15 minutes.
By Dec. 23, all the remaining cases will have been added back through January 1993.
VanCleave said they are ahead of schedule on updating Doxpop with county court records and on Tuesday had already begun adding additional years.
"Doxpop has no bearing on any other matters," he said.
"We've wanted to do this for some time; finances were always the restraint. We believe these records need to be available to the public."