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Resources policy

Contents

Introduction
What is a collection?
Purpose and objectives of Library and collection
History
Clients/users
Access
Staffing
The collection
Special collections
Budget/finance
Selection principles
Sources of supply
Access to resources not held
Limitations
Co-operative relationships/resource sharing
Retention policy
Preservation
Binding
Collection evaluation
Replacement
Duplication
Security
Review of collection development policy
APPENDIX A - Basic resources available at the District Court branch libraries
APPENDIX B - Rare Books policy

1. Introduction

The purpose of this library resources policy is to describe clearly the Auckland District Law Society's activities with regard to information collection and access. This policy is designed to be used by the librarians, the Library Committee members and the members of the Society as a means of communication and as a foundation for the allocation of the annual budget for the future acquisition of resources.

This policy has taken into account the "Guidelines for the preparation of a collection development policy" published by the Australian Council of Library and Information Services.

2. What is a collection?

In the past the collection has been defined as the physical resources held in the library building. More recently it has included materials available electronically on the Library's computer system. It now includes the internet resources which have replaced materials formerly held in the Library in hard copy. In a wider sense, it includes all resources available to users of the Library. These include online databases and the resources of other libraries.

3. Purpose and objectives of the Library and collection

The Library aims:

to facilitate access to legal information for the Society's members
to achieve the Society's vision and further the Society's key goals, by providing for practitioners throughout the district an excellent library service, alert to the profession's changing needs and alert to the use of computer technology for accessing information

4. History

The ADLS Library was established in 1867.

The Library is maintained in terms of the Law Practitioners Act 1982 s26:

"(2) Every District Law Society shall also have the function of providing and maintaining law libraries in such towns in its district as the District Council directs.
(3) Every such library shall be for the use of the High Court and such other Courts as the District Council directs, and of practitioners, and shall be managed as the District Council directs."

Libraries are maintained at the Auckland and Whangarei High Courts, and the District Courts at Auckland, Kaitaia, Kaikohe, Waitakere, North Shore, Otahuhu, Papakura, Pukekohe and Thames. This document describes the policies which determine the collections at each High Court, and the District Courts.

The LINX database is a catalogue and index of the ADLS Library, and of the Wellington District Law Society (WDLS) and the Canterbury District Law Society (CDLS) libraries. It was begun in 1987, and by 1989 had replaced the card catalogue for books for all three libraries. It indexes the major journals and judgments of all three libraries.

5. Clients/users

Members of the New Zealand Law Society, and others listed in the ADLS Libraries By-laws
Law firms and other firms whose staffs include members of the NZLS
Smaller law firms for which this will be the major library collection
Large law firms for which this will form a supplementary generalist collection
Other firms with employed solicitors
Libraries, especially university law libraries.

6. Access

The Auckland and Whangarei HC libraries are accessible at all times to holders of a library door card. All of the resources, other than online databases, can be accessed. The district court libraries are open during the opening hours of the courthouse.

7. Staffing

The ADLS Library and Research Centre is currently staffed by four professionally qualified librarians, four library assistants (three of whom are studying for the Masters in Library and Information Science), four legally qualified researchers and a part-time administrator. Five legally qualified contractors are employed part-time to index cases and journal articles. The Whangarei Library has a part-time staff member, and the Auckland District Court Library is visited twice a week by a High Court staff member. The branch libraries at Kaitaia, Kaikohe, Dargaville, North Shore, Waitakere, Manukau, Papakura, Pukekohe and Thames are visited monthly.

8. The collection

The ADLS Auckland HC Library is to be the main research collection for the ADLS area. It will provide for all generalist research needs by purchasing current publications, maintaining historical resources and providing larger general works. All materials other than a small lending collection are for reference and court use only.

New Zealand
The Library aims to purchase all standard NZ texts at practitioner level, subscribe to all journals related to the law in New Zealand, to purchase all NZ law reports series and all ADLS publications.
Unreported judgments are collected, and bound when subsequently unreported.
The unreported Court of Appeal and High Court judgments from 1997 on are no longer bound, but are stored electronically in PDF format.
Material available electronically is purchased, in addition to hard copy.

Commonwealth
The Library purchases legislation and all major reports series from the United Kingdom, Australia (Commonwealth and States) and Canada, and such other series as have been regularly required by members. Commonwealth law society publications are collected.

Pacific
Statutes and law reports from Pacific Island countries are collected.

Reference
A reference collection is maintained, consisting of dictionaries (Oxford English Dictionary or OED, legal and medical), legal encyclopaedias, lists of words and phrases judicially considered, directories of legal practitioners.

Not collected:

US material, with the exception of a small number of texts, is not purchased (Davis Law Library holds Auckland's major US legal collection)
EC and Asian material is generally not collected
Specialist areas of law, and academic analysis (e.g. air and space law, criminology)
Irregularly required law reports which are available online are not purchased - this policy provides that users who require them will pay the cost of the online service, and the cost of the staff member's time

Whangarei High Court Library
The Whangarei Library will be a supplementary research collection, with primarily New Zealand and United Kingdom materials.

District Court libraries
The District Court libraries are to be provided with the basic resources required for District Court appearances (Refer to Schedule A).
[This is not regarded as a research collection.]

9. Special collections

Rare books room
A random collection of pre-1900 works of a legal nature is housed in a temperature-controlled room within the Library. Some are of legal or historical value and have been restored to useable condition with the assistance of the Spencer Mason Trust. A few are of significant financial worth.
(Refer to Schedule B for the Rare Books policy.)

Lending collection
This collection consists of legal biographies, legal humour, law firm histories, accounts of trials, books by practitioners, diaries, legal office practice works (including computerisation), and other miscellaneous works. Some have been acquired by donation, some for staff development.

Harold Evans Peace Collection
This collection is named in honour of the retired Christchurch magistrate who initiated New Zealand’s claim to the World Court (International Court of Justice) seeking a declaration that the use of nuclear weapons would be illegal under international law. The New Zealand peace movement’s World Court Project came to a successful outcome with the ICJ findings on 8 July 1996, by which time it had gained the support of forty-five states. The ICJ accepted the evidence of citizens for the first time in this case.
The basis of the collection is a set of unique monographs and serial offprints selected from donations by the Evans family, and by the New Zealand Peace Foundation. The collection will be developed by the addition of available texts of a suitable standard which deal with legal issues of war and peace, disarmament and related topics.

10. Budget/finance

The annual acquisition budget is determined by the Executive Director of the Society, on the advice of the Librarian, within the limitations of the budget for the whole Society, as allocated by the Finance and Expenditure Committee. The budget is determined according to previous expenditure and market projections which are made by the book trade. It is the responsibility of the Librarian to ensure that the library budget is allocated in accordance with the Library's policies and to alert the Library Committee of problems associated with any shortfall when resources are needed/requested. The Library seeks advice from the Library Committee on expensive items such as serials and electronic resources and on library information services.

11. Selection principles

The staff of the Library and members of the Library Committee are responsible for selecting resources. Material of all media is selected according to its currency, price, level and authority.

The Librarian and Assistant Librarian responsible for acquisitions give final approval for acquisitions and may make purchasing decisions up to a limit of $200 without Committee approval. New editions of standard works are ordered automatically.

Staff identify materials, in all formats, for acquisition from:

scanning incoming journals
scanning publishers’ catalogues
recommendations from ADLS members, which are encouraged and generally accepted
actively identifying any material regularly requested, particularly on inter-library loan
lists of purchases by other libraries

Staff also identify subject areas where acquisitions may be required from:

scanning the subjects of the latest NZLS and ADLS seminars
recommendations from the ADLS researchers
recommendations from ADLS committees and members

Some items are obtained by mutual exchange (other law societies publications) and gifts.

12. Sources of supply

Materials are sourced from NZ legal publishers for their own materials as well as some overseas publishers with whom they maintain agency relationships.
A reducing number of overseas published serials are purchased direct from the publisher; most are sourced from overseas subscription agencies.
Some overseas materials are obtained direct from a UK agent, bypassing the NZ publishers' agency arrangement.

13. Access to resources not held

Resources not held in the Library are accessible by:

Internet
CD-ROM
Inter-library loan
Databases – LEXIS, etc.
Co-operation with other parties

14. Limitations

Resources acquired are determined by the current needs of the library users, cost and according to the co-operative arrangement with other law libraries. In accordance with the vision of ADLS, the Library must reflect the current needs of practitioners. It is therefore not intended that the Library purchase at all levels. The following are not actively sought: historical and foreign language material, basic tax materials, American reports, and other materials with no significant specialisation.

15. Co-operative relationships/resource sharing

Auckland, Wellington and Canterbury District Law Society libraries co-operate extensively.

16. Retention policy

The following categories of material are retained in storage:

Superseded editions of NZ texts
Superseded directories, superseded volumes of NZ and UK legal encyclopaedias
Duplicate copies of seminar papers; law reform committee reports
Duplicate copies of High Court and Court of Appeal judgments which are available in the Library either in hard copy or electronically

17. Preservation

Preservation services of the Library include leather bindings and book repairs.

18. Binding

The majority of the serials held by the Library are bound annually or more regularly, and form part of the continuous binding process. Some material is rebound for preservation.

19. Collection evaluation

The text collection shall be checked for currency annually by the Acquisitions Librarian and members of the Library Committee and/or other subject specialists. Out-of-date material is placed in storage according to retention policy.

20. Replacement

Lost, stolen or damaged items in the collection, if they are in regular use, will ordinarily be replaced promptly after they have been noted missing or damaged. Replacement of expensive, out-of-print and other materials is at the discretion of the Acquisitions Librarian, in consultation with the Librarian, other library staff and the Library Committee.

21. Duplication

Duplicate copies of standard works regularly required for court are purchased for the Auckland HC Library.
A hard copy of standard NZ works is retained, even when it is available in electronic format. This policy will be reviewed as practitioner competence increases, and as reliability and availability of the libraries' computer amenities permit.
NZ Statutes & Regulations will be always be retained in hard copy.

22. Security

The ADLS Auckland HC Library has a 3M security system and video recorder. Books are electronically tagged and activate the system when removal is attempted. The video recorder is secured in the Comms room, and operates only at the Anzac Avenue door, which is not controlled by staff, and which provides 24 hour access. The video is checked daily and those who trigger the system are contacted by the Librarian. Disciplinary procedures could be initiated by the Executive Director if subsequently required.

23. Review of collection development policy

This policy shall be reviewed annually as the ADLS Plan is prepared.

APPENDIX A

Basic resources available at all District Court branch libraries
Hard copy
New Zealand Statutes - annotated
New Zealand Reprinted Statutes

Databases
Statutes
New Zealand Statutes (LexisNexis)
New Zealand Regulations (LexisNexis)
Parliamentary Bills (LexisNexis)
Parliamentary Bills Digest (LexisNexis)

Commercial
Gault on Commercial Law (Brookers)

Criminal
Sentencing Digest (LexisNexis)
Halls Sentencing (LexisNexis)
Garrow and Turkington (LexisNexis)
Adams on Criminal Law (Brookers)
Criminal Reports of New Zealand (Brookers)
Mathias on Misuse of Drugs (2nd ed) (Brookers)
Summary Proceedings (Brookers)
Law of Transportation (Brookers)
Sentencing Tracker (Brookers)

Family
Family Law Collection (LexisNexis)
Family Law Service (LexisNexis)
Butterworths Family Law Journal (LexisNexis)
Fisher on Matrimonial & Relationship Property (LexisNexis)
Child Offenders Manual (LexisNexis)
New Zealand Family Law Reports (LexisNexis)

General law
LINX
NZ Law Journal Archive

Law Reports & Judgments
Court of Appeal Judgments (LexisNexis)
Privy Council Judgments (LexisNexis)
Maori Land Court Judgments (LexisNexis)
New Zealand Law Reports (LexisNexis)

Reference
The Laws of New Zealand (LexisNexis)

Procedure
Family Practice & Procedure (Brookers)
District Courts Procedure (Brookers)
McGechan on Procedure (Brookers)
Procedure Reports of New Zealand (Brookers)

APPENDIX B

Rare Books Policy
For the purposes of this policy, rare books include all documents bound or unbound stored in the Rare Books room at the ADLS Auckland HC Library.

Rare books may only be accessed by library staff members. A library staff member must remain in the Rare Books room with any person admitted by them and lock the room immediately upon leaving.

Gloves must be worn at all times when handling rare books.

Rare books are to be signed out for use in the Library only and returned to the reception desk after use. Rare books are not to be taken upstairs to the Judges chambers.

The book must be examined within sight of the reception desk, away from direct sunlight, except at the discretion of the Librarian or representative.

Practitioners must exercise the greatest possible care to prevent damage to items from the Rare Books collection (i.e. make no marks on them, rest no object on them nor take notes on top of them).

Food and drink must not be consumed in the Rare Books room or while handling any rare book or while wearing the handling gloves.

Photocopying or scanning of rare books is allowed only at the discretion of the Librarian or representative due to the fragile nature of some of the books in the collection. All photocopying must be carried out by a library staff member. The photocopied sections are to be scanned and attached to the LINX record as a PDF (e.g. PDF of the selected section or sections) so that continual handling and photocopying is avoided.

Extraordinary requests for removal of a rare book from the Library or access by a member of the public must be put in writing and considered by the Convenor of the Library Committee.

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