15 Law Library
15.1 Major Initiatives
Law Card.
In late 1995 the Law Library and MONINFO, with the support and assistance of the
Law School, launched the Law Card. This service is designed to make the
resources, facilities and services of the Law Library available, for a fee, to
the legal profession. Launches have been held at city law firm offices for the
large firms, at the Law Library for suburban practitioners and at the Supreme
Court for members of the Bar. The presentation was attended by the Chief Justice
of Victoria, the Dean of Law and senior members of the Faculty. Under
consideration is a proposal to establish a `partnership' with a marketing
consultant to promote the Card and maximise earnings.
Legal Information Online project.
The Law Library is embarking upon a project to provide online, full-text access
to areas of its print collection of case law, legislation, treaties and journal
articles. It is envisaged that such an 'image' database, accessible via the Web,
will open up many currently somewhat inaccessible areas of the collection to
greater use amongst both the University population and the wider, commercial
community. The ALLI (Australasian Legal Literature Index) database will be a key
component of the new Legal Information Online, or LIO service. The report of
consultant Helena Wong on software specification for the Electronic Law Library
Project, was presented to Management and then sent to possible software
suppliers and developers with a view to eliciting expressions of interest. The
Project will continue in 1997.
Student docking-station project.
The Law Library is also involved in a pilot project with the Computer Centre,
whereby purpose built 'docking stations' will be installed with a view to
allowing direct student access to the network from their lap-top computers. The
Library will supply the furniture while the Computer Centre will arrange for the
necessary wiring and connection to the network. If successful the project will
be expanded across the University Library system and has the potential to
greatly reduce pressure to build and provide new computer facilities for
students. It is expected that students will be able to use the docking stations
by the commencement of the 1997 academic year.
Collection development.
Budgetary pressures and hugely increased growth in Australian legal publishing
has led to the development of "The Law Library Collection Development
Policy". This policy defines the major areas for continued development of
the collection and has been discussed at meetings of Faculty academic staff and
the Law Faculty Board. Agreement was reached on the future shape of the
collection and procedures for continuing review.
15.2 User Education
1996 has been a year of experimentation on the user education front. With the
increased transition to use of electronic resources, the Law Library believes
that this area of our work is more important that most others - for both staff
and student users of the Library. Need for training and ongoing and immediate
support was the most oft-repeated need expressed in the series of discussions
that formed part of the collection development policy process.
The Law Library established a daily program of `informal' small group classes
in legal research which have proven popular with staff and students because of
their flexibility. Establishment of a Law Library `personal contact' for all
Faculty members and stepped up advertising along the lines of `call us anytime
for anything' has also helped to ease some Faculty members' concerns about using
electronic resources. A new formal training program for Faculty members is also
being developed (`how to find cases', `how to find journal articles', etc) and
will be run at intervals.
The Law Library, continued to participates as a `partner' with the Law
Faculty in the delivery of formal, accredited, legal research instruction
classes. These were run for the first time in 1996 and will be extended to
post-graduate students in 1997. Finally, it is interesting to note that as the
smallest Branch Library, the Law Library ran more user education classes than
any other branch of the Library during 1996.
15.3 Accommodation and Refurbishment
The Law Library's refurbishment program has continued during 1996. Highlights
for this year have included the recarpeting of the entire library, repainting of
the first floor, refurbishment of the first floor computer laboratory,
construction of a new state-of-the-art computer laboratory on the fourth floor
and installation of a number of new workstations. Law Library attendants have
also undertaken some major collection moves during 1996 and completely
reorganised the `Closed Stacks' area - which had been a nightmare for years.
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