Monthly Archives: January 2021

What is a Legal Deposit Library?

Posted on by
1

When speaking to students who live in Edinburgh library staff tell them that they can join the National Library of Scotland (NLS).

At the minute that’s not strictly true – as the NLS along with all other libraries are under restrictions. But why do we say it would be good to consider joining when we have so much in our own libraries?

The main reason is that the NLS is a Legal Deposit Library – but what does that mean?

The NLS is one of six Legal Deposit Libraries in the UK. A Legal Deposit Library is governed by specific legislation:

• The Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003
• Irish Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000
• Legal Deposit Libraries (Non-Print) Regulations 2013

This legislation allows these six libraries to claim a copy of any work published in the UK and Ireland, either in print or electronically as identified under the legislation. This includes more than just books and journal articles- but also newspapers and some content from the worldwide web.

So you can just imagine what they have on their shelves and servers! If you are interested in finding out more go to the information pages on the NLS:
https://www.nls.uk/about-us/legal-deposit

For law in particular, this has a great significance in Scotland. The National Library of Scotland was founded from the collection of the Faculty of Advocates’ Library, a private members’ organisation which is still considered to have one of the finest collections of Scottish Law material in existence.

From its formal opening in 1689, the Advocates Library in Edinburgh rapidly developed into the finest library in Scotland. Following the introduction of the Library’s legal deposit privilege in 1710, its book collection grew at an ever-increasing rate.

The Advocates Library gradually came to be seen as Scotland’s national library in all but name. In 1925, an Act of Parliament formally established the National Library of Scoland. The Faculty of Advocates then gifted its collection — with the exception of legal material — to the country.

(National Library of Scotland, ‘Advocates Collection’)

We have such a wonderful opportunity for access to rare and unusual material from having both the Advocates’ and NLS collections just around the corner from our campus, and so we highly recommend students take advantage of the resources they have available.

New Scan & Deliver Service

Posted on by
Reply

The semester has been a busy start for everyone!

Due to government restrictions there have been limits placed on accessing our print resources, but as of the 18th January a new Scan & Deliver service is in operation.

The service offers staff and students of the University of Edinburgh the opportunity to request scans of one book chapter or 10% (whichever is the greater) or one journal article via DiscoverEd. The library will then email you a link which you can use to view and download the material. There are some limits (as we have to abide by copyright law), but it is worthwhile considering as an option for initial access to key section(s). Full details of the service are available on the dedicated webpages:

Scan & Deliver pages.

It is also worth remembering that for material we do not have within the library collections there is the interlibrary loan service (ILL). As with many library services we are operating within an online environment at the moment, but for book chapters and articles it may be possible to request a copy through this service.

Interlibrary Loan Service (ILL) pages

1-2-1 Librarian Meetings

The Law Academic Support Librarians have arranged some 1-2-1 bookable sessions for students. The time can be used for any library related query. Sessions will be advertised about 3 weeks in advance, but details of the upcoming ones are available on the MyEd Events Bookings.

Welcome back, and the Law Library during Lockdown

Posted on by
Reply
A pair of hands hold a tablet with an image of shelves of books displayed on the screen.

Digital Library, from Geralt on Pixabay

Hello, and welcome back! This semester is set to be another strange one as we begin in ‘lockdown’ conditions in line with Scottish Government restrictions. This means that for the next few weeks the library will be running an online service with many physical buildings closed or with only very restricted access. Full information about the availability of library sites can be found on the Library Service Updates page.

If you feel a bit stressed about the availability of materials over the coming weeks and months, rest assured we will continue to work to make sure that all core material is available electronically and that we have as much ebook access to the things you need as possible.

We’re running a few online sessions in the coming weeks to help you refamiliarise yourself with online library services. One of these is a refresher session on the 27th January 2021, between 9.30 and 10am, and is open to students at all levels. We will provide a short update on library services, some key resources that you may not already be familiar with, and will have time to answer your questions too. You can book a place for this online event here, or by searching in the MyEd Events Booking system for ‘Library Services Refresher Session – Law’

We’ll also be running an introductory event for new PG Online students beginning in January 2021, and a repeat of our popular PhD Using the Library session which we last ran in September. For booking information please follow the links or get in touch with us via law.librarian@ed.ac.uk.

Finally you can also attend the Library Bitesize sessions which we’ll be running in the coming weeks, focused on Using the Online Library. For links to this and all other Library Bitesize sessions please see the Events Booking system.

We hope that you managed to enjoy your festive break and that you’re managing to proceed with your studies as planned. We look forward to helping support your studies online over the coming semester. As ever if there’s anything we can do to set your minds at ease please let us know!