1. Purpose of the collection

The collection supports the teaching and research needs of staff and students in the T.C.Beirne School of Law and those from other schools whose study or research needs require access to legal materials.

2. Primary user groups served

The Library acquires material primarily to support the undergraduates, postgraduates and staff of the School of Law as well as commerce, social work and other students studying law related courses. It also supports the needs of the following Centres:

  • Australian Institute of Foreign and Comparative Law
  • Australian Society of Legal Philosophy
  • The Centre for the Legal and Economic Study of Institutions
  • The Centre for Technology Law
  • The Centre for Maritime Law
  • The Corrs Chambers Westgarth Dispute Management Centre

3. History of the collection

Law subjects including Roman law, Public International Law, Constitutional Law and Jurisprudence were first introduced in the 1920's in the faculty of Arts. The first professor of law was appointed in 1926 but it was not until 1936 that the law school was established. The Law school moved from its city premises to St Lucia in 1948. According to the National Survey of Law Libraries the library was established in the 1920's initially as a departmental collection which appears to have continued until 1966.

Prior to 1946, Law materials were housed in the general library, then the materials were transferred to the Law Lecture Room. Subsequently, the collection was developed to support undergraduate teaching and a core collection of Australian, British and to a lesser extent Canadian and United States material was built up. The collection also supported the special areas of Law of the Sea and Intellectual Property.

In 1965, the book collection comprised 16,000 volumes, 25,000 in 1970 and 25,500 in 1973. The Library continues to receive some funds from the Macrossan bequest which commenced in 1966. Reports in 1974, 1984, and the Pearce Report in 1987 were highly critical of the standard of most Law Libraries including that of the University of Queensland. The 1974 publication recommended that no Law Library should have less than 50,000 volumes excluding multiples. In order to alleviate some of the problems, backsets and formed collections were purchased from Special Equipment Grants in the late 1970's.

In 1977, the University librarian wrote that "special efforts to increase expenditure on law materials over several years have now created a moderately good teaching collection". The current monograph collection today is 27,000 (including duplicates) and journal volumes number some 55,000 but that does not include volumes in storage. However teaching methods have changed and there is a much greater dependence on electronic resources to which the Library has substantial access.

4. Description of the existing collection

The collection comprises 27,000 books, 55,000 journal volumes, and 1,507 serial subscriptions as well as some videos, audiotapes and CD Roms. Multiple copies of textbooks are purchased and a few heavily used law reports and statutes are duplicated to cater for intensive use by all students. Its collections strengths include material from common law countries with an emphasis on Australia (especially Queensland), Britain and the USA. A European Document Deposit Centre was established in the Library in 1996. This collection includes non-legal material. Major fields of interest are intellectual property, maritime law, native title and indigenous issues, jurisprudence, international and comparative law, European Union law.

The University of Queensland Library has many electronic databases that are accessible in all branch libraries. These include: Web of Science; InfoTrac Expanded Academic ASAP; InfoTrac Legaltrac; Index to legal periodicals; Current legal information; Index to foreign legal periodicals.

The Library also has electronic access to collections of full text materials including: Butterworths online; CCH publications; Westlaw; Lexis; Quicklaw.

5. Interdisciplinary relationships

Other University of Queensland branch libraries supplement the resources of the Law Library. For example:

Parliamentary papers, Greek and Roman Law, Philosophy, History, Taxation, Criminology and Social Research in the Social Sciences and Humanities Library; Construction Law in the Architecture and Music Library; Electronic Commerce in the Ipswich Library; Real estate law in the Gatton Library; Standards in the Dorothy Hill Physical Sciences and Engineering Library; Legal issue relating to the health professions in the Biological Sciences Library and Herston Health Sciences Library; Environmental law – Biological Sciences Library and Dorothy Hill Physical Sciences and Engineering Library.

6 Scope of current collecting

  1. Languages collected:  Purchased material is primarily in the English language, however material in European languages is being added as part of the EDC deposit and a few titles are being purchased in other languages to support comparative legal studies.
  2. Geographical areas:  The priority given to common law countries is: Australia (and its territories) with particular emphasis on Queensland; Great Britain; Canada; New Zealand, United States; other common law countries including Papua New Guinea, Fiji, India, Malaysia and Hong Kong. Material relating to non-common law jurisdictions includes selected European and Asian countries. The collection also includes areas which cross jurisdictional boundaries such as International and Comparative Law; European Community Law; Antarctica; Islamic Law; Maritime Law; Indigenous Law.
  3. Chronological periods collected or excluded:  No chronological period is specifically excluded though the emphasis is on current issues.
  4. Types (forms) of material collected or excluded:  The library has collections of material in print, microform, video and audio formats. There is now a focus on building collections in electronic format.