11 Law Library
1997 was not an easy year for the Law Library, although nearly all Business
Plan objectives were met, to the great credit of the staff. Staff numbers
decreased by 20 % over the course of the year, a factor which necessitated some
restructuring of services.
The materials budget continued to shrink in real terms and serials
cancellations continued. The budget in 1997 was $600,000. To maintain a research
level collection able to support the teaching and research needs of
undergraduate and postgraduate students and staff, it is estimated that a budget
of $750,000 is required for 1998. The likely allocation is around $620,000.
The major development in 1997 was the markedly increased availability of
primary law materials (judgments and legislation) via the World Wide Web, not
just for Australia but for many other countries. Web-based delivery of this
material is rapidly replacing the need for CD-ROM's. There are enormous
advantages of this to the Library, and to our users, in terms of flexibility of
access, currency of information and reduced infrastructure and handling costs.
The Law Library will make best use of these advantages in 1998 and aims to
radically reduce reliance on CD-ROM's. Petal Kinder, as coordinator of the legal
research program, was fully involved in this process and it was decided that all
training in 1998 would be Web-based.
Law Library staff attended numerous staff development courses during 1997. HTML
training figured largely in those courses attended by subject and reference
librarians. Lisa Smith attended the "Law via the Internet" conference
in Sydney. All professional staff attended the Law School's E-Law Symposium and
the TWP/HEPCIT Conference. Dawn Carroll completed her studies in Librarianship.
Law Library refurbishment continued during 1997, following plans drawn up in
1995. A trompe l'oeil style mural was painted by artist Marina Baker on a main
wall of the Library's first floor, as a backdrop to a painting donated by Mr
Campbell McComas. The mural was `launched' at a function attended by Mr McComas,
the Vice-Chancellor and senior members of the Faculty of Law and the Library.
At the end of 1997, the Law Library's first floor computer laboratory was
completely refurbished and expanded, largely funded by the Law Faculty. The
refurbishment featured additional artwork by Marina Baker
The Law Library's Web pages, designed and developed by Lisa Smith continue to be
the most comprehensive of any law school library in the country. They are now
the centrepiece of our legal research instruction and also the starting place
for most legal research.
Law Library and Law Faculty staff continued to cooperate, in 1997, in the
delivery of legal research instruction to undergraduate law students. This
partnership has been highly successful and has been touted as a model for other
sectors of the Library. The courses will be expanded in 1998 to include formal
instruction for postgraduate students for the first time.
As a result of the work of Lisa Smith and Nicholas Pengelley in Kiribati,
approaches have been made by Australian Legal Resources Inc (ALRI), whose Chief
Patron is Dame Roma Mitchell and Chairman is Justice Marcus Einfeld, to assist
with provision of law library services to underdeveloped countries. ALRI has run
projects in Palestine, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Africa and the Caribbean to assist in
the development of legal systems, promoting the rule of law. Nick and Lisa
attended a major ALRI function at Government House in Sydney in late November
and held discussions with Justice Einfeld.
The Law Library continued to work successfully with MONINFO in 1997. The number
of jobs has continued to increase, as has the complexity. Use of our unique
Pacific Islands law collection continues to be a feature of the service.
ALLI (the Australasian Legal Literature Index) which commenced in 1985, was
discontinued at the end of 1997. The database ultimately proved to be
uneconomical, costing over $50,000 a year in salaries to produce. If this had
been the only factor, discontinuance may not have been considered, however there
are rival indexes, notably the Australian Indexes range to which the
Library subscribes. These index a wider range of journals than ALLI and are more
current.
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