| Library home | Catalogue | Resources | Services | Help | Libraries | About us |
| Staff directory | A-Z index | Site map |
| Library home | Catalogue | Resources | Services | Help | Libraries | About us |
| Staff directory | A-Z index | Site map |
Faculty of Law1. The facultyThe Faculty of Law was founded in 1964 and provides legal education for students at undergraduate and graduate level, who become practising lawyers in all branches of the profession, law teachers, business men and women, members of the public service and contributors to law reform agencies. A range of undergraduate, postgraduate and combined courses is offered. The faculty is located on the Clayton campus and has grown to become the largest law school in Australia, with over 2,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students, and a community of PhD students that has doubled in size since 1998. There are some 76 academic staff in the faculty. Research and teaching centres of the faculty: Castan Centre for Human Rights Law - established in July 2000, the Centre aims to generate innovative theoretical and practical approaches to understanding and implementing the growing body of international and domestic human rights law. The Centre operates as a vehicle to bring together the work of national and international human rights scholars, practitioners and advocates from a wide range of disciplines in order to promote and protect human rights. Monash Centre for Regulatory Studies - been established by the Faculty of Law in association with the Faculties of Business and Economics, Arts and Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences to provide interdisciplinary postgraduate teaching programs in regulatory studies, to undertake and foster innovative research in regulatory theory and practice and to provide training and consultancy services, seminars and workshops for the public and private sectors in Australia and overseas. Teaching centre of the faculty: International Institute of Forensic Studies - established to promote research and education relating to the functioning and processes of courts and tribunals. The word "forensic" is used in its broad sense of 'relating to the courts' and 'forensic studies' is intended to encompass the many areas of legal work which may be described as forensic in nature. This extends beyond legal practitioners and includes the many groups that are involved in the forensic process such as professionals who provide expert evidence, police and other investigative agencies as well as members of the public who may be involved as witnesses or jurors. Research interests of individual members of the Faculty of Law are listed on the faculty web at (www.law.monash.edu.au/research/index.htm)l More information about:
2. General policy statementThe Collection Development Policy covers printed books and journals, electronic resources, multimedia and any other formats acquired for the Library's collection. The Policy is regularly monitored to ensure that the selection and acquisition of new resources supports the teaching and research needs of the faculties and their departments. While every effort is made to meet known information needs some gaps in the collection may develop which need attention, and suggestions to address them are welcome. This may be done through liaison with library staff or, for individual titles, using the recommendation form at lib.monash.edu.au/forms/acquisition-request.doc To ensure that the library provides collection materials to support new courses and subjects, completion of a Library Impact Statement lib.monash.edu.au/forms/impact.doc is required. When establishing new research directions staff are encouraged to liaise with the library about the provision of supporting information resources. All titles listed as prescribed or recommended reading for teaching subjects are acquired as high priority and in multiple copies depending on student enrolment numbers. This is particularly necessary for undergraduate students, who need access to adequate resources on their home campus. Electronic versions of these texts are also provided where possible, so that access is more readily available regardless of location and number of copies held. The inter-campus loan and photocopy services for undergraduates further support the needs of those students. However, the library cannot acquire every item that could conceivably be needed by Monash staff or students. The reciprocal borrowing scheme enables Monash library users to borrow from other university libraries. Post-graduates and staff may also use the document delivery service to obtain books and articles from other libraries in Australia and overseas. 3. The library's collectiona. Location.While the collection specifically designated as supporting courses of the Faculty of Law is housed in the Law Library on the Clayton campus, other areas of the University also have an interest in law and have collected extensive 'law' holdings. The Faculty of Arts has interests in inter alia environmental law, indigenous peoples and the law, jurisprudence, constitutional studies and the law of the European Union. The Department of Politics has a strong interest in international law, international organisations and constitutional history, and material in these areas purchased for the Department is located in the Matheson Library on the Clayton campus. Similarly, the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology and the Department of Social Work acquire material in the area of criminology which is of interest to staff and students within the Faculty of Law, and these are located in the Matheson Library. The Faculty of Business and Economics has interests in taxation, company law and accountancy as well as issues related to law and economics. This has resulted in significant collections in the Matheson Library (Clayton campus), the Gippsland Library and the Caulfield Library. The Department of Forensic Medicine (Faculty of Medicine) acquires material in the legal area and this is located in the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine. b. LanguageGenerally only material in the English language is acquired, but this does include some bilingual or multilingual material, eg some Canadian publications. c. Classification usedMaterial purchased for the Law Library, both monograph and serial, is classified using "A general classification scheme for Monash University Law Library", which has been designed specifically for the Law Library, based on the Moys legal classification system. This scheme has been used since the establishment of the Law Library in 1964 , and is regularly revised to take account of developing areas and interests related to law. Some non-legal material is classified using the Dewey Decimal Classification, as is all law-related material located in other Monash libraries. d. FormatsWhile no format is specifically excluded, in practice materials are generally either print or electronic. There are small collections of videorecordings, DVDs, and computer disks and a larger microform collection. e. Size of the collectionEstimated current size of the monograph collection : The Law Library has a collection of over 150,000 volumes, as well as thousands of volumes in microform. Number of print serial titles received : approximately 1277 journal and other serial and standing order titles are currently received by the Law Library. The Law Library's Pacific Law Collection comprises one of the largest collections of Pacific Island States and Territories primary and secondary law materials in Australasia. The region includes nine independent states (Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, PNG, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Samoa), five associated states (Cook Islands, Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Niue, Palau), and 15 territories which are self-governing to different degrees. The law, law-related literature and legal information of and concerning these states and territories is collected. The Law Library has established "on approval" plans with the following Australian and overseas publishers for the supply of legal titles: Butterworths, LawbookCo, CCH, Federation Press, and Oxford and Cambridge University Presses. f. Significant electronic resourcesThe library is purchasing increased numbers of resources in electronic format, including online fulltext and bibliographic databases, suites of electronic journals, and other fulltext resources. As a result, an increasing proportion of the budget for library material for the Faculty of Law is spent on these resources. These include: Indexing and abstracting services
Fulltext databases / electronic journal suites
Subject gateways
Approximately 58% of the library materials budget for the Faculty of Law is spent on serials, and 22% on electronic resources. g. Coverage of the collectionThe library resources for the faculty cover in general the Dewey Decimal Classification from 340-349 that includes all areas of law, as well as resources in other areas that are required to support the law literature. Particular areas collected include: Australia
New Zealand, United Kingdom, Canada, United States of America, South Africa
International Law
The European Union
Asia Pacific Common law jurisdictions collected:
Collecting:
Civil law and other foreign jurisdictions
The main areas of collecting for the Faculty of Law are detailed below
The Law Library also maintains a small popular crime fiction and popular crime/law video and DVD collection. Due to the nature of the discipline, a high proportion of the acquisition budget is spent on serial subscriptions, including law reports, legislation, loose-leaf services, standing orders and print and electronic journals. The challenge is to allocate the remainder to purchase both the growing bulk of Australian material to support teaching and research, as well as the best interpretative texts from overseas, to support the primary law materials (reports and statutes). The collection aims to be comprehensive in collecting primary and secondary source materials for Australia and to have research level collections for Australasia, the Pacific Island States and Territories, as well as in all areas of International Law. Other research collections are in criminal law and criminology, and taxation. Collections in the area of primary law of most Asian jurisdictions support teaching requirements. Other jurisdictions, such as the UK, USA, New Zealand and South Africa are collected as comprehensively as teaching and research requires and funds will permit. There is minimal purchasing of student 'guides' and 'companions'. 4. Other significant Monash collections or resourcesThe Donald Cochrane Library (within the Faculty of Business and Economics, Clayton Campus) has a significant collection of relevant resources. Microform collection (Matheson Library, Music Multimedia), includes:
Collections Table(T = teaching level, R = research level)
Amendment history
Need help? Library frequently asked questions and online
enquiries: current students/staff | public users, online chat,
or phone +61 3 9905 5054 |