Legal System tours

Next week we'll be seeing a lot of Legal System students in the Library, as they all get a mini-tour as part of their first tutorial.
It can be a bit chaotic, especially if there is more than one tutorial group here at a time. So just to be clear, here is what we'd like you to know:

• You're all welcome!
• We have sound recordings of the Legal System lectures - though there seems to be a slight hiccough with those at the moment - hope to have it sorted soon.
• We have staplers and printers and photocopiers, all near the Desk.
• The stuff behind the Desk is the Reserve collection - stuff that can be borrowed for a couple of hours at a time. You can find out what is on Reserve for Legal System (or any other course) via the Course Reserve tab of the library catalogue .
• You can find out more about the library via the Law Subject Guide.
• The best way to learn how to use the Law Library is to ask - at the Desk. That applies to all law students.

Summon old, summon new

Introducing Summon, the new widget that sits at the top of the Library's homepage. It's a database aggregator, meaning that it searches across a host of databases - the library catalogue, and lots of full-text databases. Which means that it doesn't really matter if you are looking for a book or an article - it should find either.
Definitely worth a look, though it often happens that the major legal publishers aren't included in these one-size-fits-all sorts of deals.
I tried putting it through its paces with our standard search: material on Lange v Atkinson. Simply typing: lange and atkinson got a huge result, full of authors called Atkinson and weird medical tests, often cited in German articles, that somehow included Lange. Second attempt was "lange v atkinson" - so, searching for an exact phrase. Much better - 7 hits, all of which were relevant, roughly half of which were for books. Compare this to a LegalTrac search - also 7 hits, but none of them the same as the Summon ones. Compare this to Linx - 35 hits (that's for articles).
And then I tested it with one of the Laws 498 questions, looking for articles or casenotes on the 1964 Rookes v Barnard case. Again, I searched for it as an exact phrase. Didn't really expect to find much but there were 113. At least the first few seemed relevant. A lot of them seemed to come from HeinOnline.
So, it's a new toy. Worth playing with, but don't throw away the old ones yet, especially if you are looking for New Zealand material, or primary material.

Welcome, welcome back!

So the new academic year has started, ready or not.
There are a few changes, most notably the new law subject guide. It has had a bit of a makeover, thanks to the libguides software we are now using. So we've taken the opportunity to change a few other things as well. What that amounts to is that each page has a column of quicklinks down the left-hand side, so if you know what you want, you should find it pretty quickly. The main column of each page puts it all in context, so if you're not sure what you want, we'll talk you through it. At least, that's the aim.
It's a work in progress. Some bits are simply copied from the old subject guide; some bits are still in note-to-self form; all of it needs checking - so expect a few glitches.
The old subject guide is still there and still available via a link from the home page of the new guide.
Let us know what you think, and what we can do to make it work for you.

Foreign law: digests

We often recommend secondary sources (texts, commentary, articles) as a good starting point for finding the law, and this is true of foreign law too. By foreign law, I mean the law of another country or jurisdiction.
If you want something short and sweet, try the Martindale-Hubbell law digests. You'll get a brief digest (i.e. overview) of the government and legal system, and a brief overview of of each of the main areas of law (criminal, employment, environment, family etc). The digest information is well worth the effort it takes to find it. So, go to Lexis (you need a university username for this); select: Find a Source and search for: martindale-hubbell law digest. When you browse the results list, you'll see that each American state has its own digest; and that there are regional digests e.g. Asian law digests, within which you will find digests for individual countries. Take your time and explore a bit, look for the browsable TOC (table of contents), stay away from the "listings" (unless you are looking for a lawyer rather than a digest) and sooner or later you'll find what you want. If you don't, just ask.
Other options for foreign law:

• search the library catalogue for an introductory text on the law of your chosen country - we don't have many print texts outside of the common law countries but you may find a useful e-book.
• try the LegalTrac database for articles - probably better for specific areas of law.
• try the (free) GlobaLex research directory - good for international and foreign law.
• try the (free) WorldLII databases
• just ask - at the desk, or via email or phone. Foreign law can be tricky but with time and effort, we can usually track it down.

Web feeds make keeping up to date easy!

Keep up to date with changes in NZ legislation using web feeds.
The New Zealand Legislation website allows users to subscribe to ready-made feeds, or to design their own to match specific research needs.