A Sea of Books: Moys Reclassification Underway

Readers coming to the library during August have been confronted by a sea of books arranged on the desks on the main reading-room floor.

The main reading room floor

These are the monographs from the United Kingdom (Cw UK) section, and it’s amazing to think that all these books fit into such a relatively small space of shelving in the library. So, why have these books left their usual place and migrated to the desks? No, this isn’t a new initiative to bring the Law Bod books closer to you, our readers! Well, at least not literally closer, anyhow. In fact it is the final stage in our ongoing reclassification project. Soon the books will all be back on the shelves, but with a very important difference.

Readers returning to the library in September and October will find that the old law library shelfmarking scheme for UK monographs has changed to the Moys classification scheme. So whereas a shelfmark for a book on UK tort law used to look something like this: Cw UK 570 B345a2 ; it will now look something like this: KN30.BAR 2002. The reason for this change is to ultimately make the collection more accessible to you.

The Moys scheme is named after its creator, the law librarian Elizabeth Moys, and is tailor made for academic law collections. The Moys scheme gives a much more detailed subject classification that will make browsing the shelves an easier and more fruitful exercise. For example, where under the old scheme books on agency, contract, competition law, sale of goods, and finance were all mixed up together under Cw UK 530, under Moys they will each have their own separate sections.

This is an exciting new development for the Law Bod, and although things might seem unfamiliar at first, the staff will, as ever, be ready to help you find your way around.

 

HeinOnline news

Check out HeinOnlines latest newsletter to find out details of new and updated content on HeinOnline including the addition of the League of Nations Treaty Series to the UN Law Collection, additions to World Trials and Legal Classics and the following new journals:

Acta Universitatis Danubius Juridica 2005-2008

Estate Planning and Community Property Law Journal (2008)

Journal of Competition Law and Economics Vol. 1 (2005)

Journal of International Business and Law Vols. 1-7 (2002-2008)

Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics Vols. 1-36 (1973-2008)

Journal of Legal Analysis Vol. 1 (2009)

Law Notes (Edward Thompson Co.) Vols. 1-50 (1897-1946) All published.

Modern American Vols. 1-4 (2005-2008)

Student Lawyer Vols. 1-36 (1972-2008)

 

Term time opening hours

Term time opening hours resume Saturday 25 April and are:

Monday – Friday 9am-10pm

Saturday 10am-6pm

Sunday 11am-6pm

We are grateful to Lovells for sponsoring extended term time opening hours.

 

Grateful to GlobaLex

When faced with a legal research problem in a foreign jurisdiction about which you have little personal knowledge or experience, GlobaLex is a great place to start.
This free electronic resource is published by the Hauser Global Law School Program at NYU School of Law, and is devised with both the  legal academic and practitioner in mind.  Globalex authors know what they are talking about - in the case of jurisdictions you have the wisdom and experience of the native on your screen.  The date of each article is prominently given – and updates appear from time to time. Coverage currently runs from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe – with about 120 countries in between!

 

International commercial law

This being (another) area of law in which (to put it mildly) I have  a lot to learn, Trans-Lex.org (see previous blog entry) was always bound to lead me to/remind me of other useful resources.

One  is the CISG Database from the Institute of International Commercial Law,  Pace Law School.

The translation service can be a particular boon. For example, there are currently some 290 translations  of CIETAC arbitration awards, while if you go to the English webpages of the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission and click the link for either Awards, Commentary or Case Analysis Report the message is just “The web page is building.”

Another part of CISG which promises to become a powerful resouce is Corterier’s Commentary on the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods .  This is the blurb from its homepage: “Here, academics and practicioners alike aim to provide a well-researched, easily accessible commentary. The commentary strives to pay particular attention to the wealth of information on the CISG already available online. It puts these resources at your fingertips by linking directly to the more important works to be found “out there”. This is a work in progress. Some of the articles have already been treated in some depth (and will be updated regularly), the rest are coming. Should you have questions, comments or would like to participate, please contact the editor.”

 

Reporting Europe prize 2009

James Kantor, International Herald Tribune and New York Times journalist, has won this year’s Reporting Europe prize, awarded jointly by UACES  http://www.uaces.org/ and Thomson Reuters

A panel of academics and journalists shortlisted six articles and broadcasts, which  excelled in stimulating critical debate on European integration.  The winning article, on the EU’s Emissions Trading System, was published in the International Herald Tribune of 10 December 2008.

For further information, see http://www.uaces.org/awards/reporting/

 

Searching the catalogue: What is Law Retro?

In your catalogue searches you may come across a strange and rather unhelpful shelfmark that just says ‘Law Retro’. It may also say ‘Law Retro Staff’, or ‘Law Retro 4567’ (or some other number). What does this shelfmark mean? Well first, a little background…

Way back in the mists of time, the 80s in fact, the Bodleian Library decided to replace the card catalogue with a new computerised catalogue. However, putting all the information from those typed record cards on the computer wasn’t without a few hiccups. Moreover, when the system was upgraded, there were more hiccups and this is when ‘Law Retro’ starts to make an appearance in the catalogue.

So, what is Law Retro? It is a flag for Bodleian cataloguers to show that, for some reason, the catalogue entry needs some attention. It might need upgrading, correcting or deleting

If you come across one, what should you do? In most cases it means that the record you are looking at is a duplicate of another one in the catalogue. Almost always the other record has a perfectly normal looking shelfmark. To find the correct record, go back to the previous search screen and locate the record from there. If that fails, please ask a member of staff and we will be glad to help.

It is an ongoing project at the Law Library to try to eliminate all these entries but the task is a large one. We will get there in the end — only another few thousand or so go!

 

Current legal research topics database

The Institute of Advanced Legal Studies(IALS) has given new life to this project – click here for more details- whose  ”… purpose … is to provide postgraduate students (who are undertaking or thinking of undertaking a PhD or MPhil) and their supervisors and law schools with a comprehensive listing of legal research currently undertaken in British law schools at MPhil or PhD level.”
 Anyone can search this database freely via title word or words, subject keyword, jurisdiction, student’s name or University.

 

Law Lords blogging too!

A report today from the House of Lords that nine peers will be setting up a blog pilot for six months to publicise the work of the House. The site is called Lords of the Blog. It went live today, and encourages ‘direct dialogue between web users across the world and Members of the House of Lords.’ It has a nice, chatty approach, and worth a visit – lots of comments already!

 

Not another law library blog…

It’s sometimes hard to find a way to communicate with our students and colleagues via the traditional channels, so, belatedly, we are joining the bloggers world. We – the staff at the Bodleian Law Library – occasionally pick up news or information or ideas that are worth sharing, and we plan to use Law Bod Blog for this purpose.

Who are we?  A group of librarians/ information specialists/reference assistants/ research assistants and others who work together in this wonderful library which holds one of the best collections of law related resources in the UK. We like what we do so much that now and then, when we come up with interesting law related stuff, we’ll use this blog to share it with you. And we look forward to hearing from you too!

Welcome to the Law Bod Blog!