Library Services

The Law Courts Library acts as a legal resource and information centre to the following courts and tribunals located in the Law Courts Building: the High Court of Australia, Federal Court of Australia, Supreme Court of NSW, Federal Police Disciplinary Tribunal, Defence Force Appeals Tribunal, Australian Competition Tribunal and Copyright Tribunal.

The Library serves approximately 120 Judges, Acting Judges, Federal Magistrates, Masters and Registrars. Legal practitioners and litigants in person may apply to access the Law Courts Library’s collections and services on a user-pays basis but do not have borrowing rights. Libraries holding a current Access Card may borrow from the collection if they agree to adhere to conditions laid down in the Australian Interlending Code and the Law Courts Library Rules.

Legal practitioners and litigants may borrow material for court free of charge on the day the matter is heard.


ORGANISATION OF BUSINESS

The Law Courts Library is jointly funded by the NSW and Commonwealth governments. Matters of policy relating to the Library are the responsibility of the Law Courts Library Management Committee. The work of the Committee is reported separately in this chapter.

The Library’s four divisional managers, Reader Services, Technical Services, Systems and Administration, report directly to the Librarian in Charge. From the beginning of 2003, the work of the Systems Division will be managed within the Reader Services Division. Divisional managers have their own staff. The Law Courts Library currently employs the equivalent of 18.5 full-time staff.


SIGNIFICANT MATTERS AND OVERVIEW OF 2002

The Library’s home page has been redesigned and the content developed to provide judicial officers and staff with more convenient access to legal information and library services.

Links to the most recent issues of electronic journals are now available via the home page and will replace the hard copy Current Awareness Bulletin. Data entry necessary to produce the Bulletin has been eliminated, abstracts will be replaced with full text articles and the information will be available to court staff via the desktop.

The introduction of the new Crown Employees (Librarians, Library Assistants, Library Technicians and Archivists) Award 2002 provided both professional and para-professional staff of the Law Courts Library with significant salary increases.

Price increases for overseas publications, combined with currency fluctuations, substantially reduced the purchasing power of the book allocation.

Despite meeting regularly throughout 2002, representatives from the State and Commonwealth governments were unable to reach agreement on the content of a Memorandum of Understanding designed to provide a new funding and management structure for the Law Courts Library.

Space became a major issue again in 2002. The stack collection, housed in compactus units on Level 14, was extensively weeded. Unwanted or duplicate material was offered to other libraries.


LIBRARY USERS

The Law Courts Library has two categories of users:

• primary users are the Judges, Acting Judges, Masters, Federal Magistrates, Presidential Members and Registrars together with their associates, researchers and tipstaves
• secondary users are members of the legal profession, litigants and librarians who have access to the Library’s collections and services on a user-pays basis.

Access fees are used for the ongoing maintenance of the Library collection.


SERVICES

The Law Courts Library provides the following services:

• legal reference and research services
• library homepage with access to a comprehensive range of electronic resources and services
• guides to the Library’s collections and resources
• legal research training using hard copy, electronic databases and Internet resources
• materials to support the Library’s training program
• conference database
• document delivery and inter-library loan services
• on-line index to the Hansard, including details of reading speeches and assent and commencement dates for NSW and Commonwealth Bills
• online current awareness service
• free access to authorities for use in the Court on the day the matter is heard.

Library staff
The Systems Manager moved from the Library to LawAccess NSW on a permanent basis. The position is currently vacant.

The Reference Librarian was appointed to the position of Client Services Librarian at the NSW Law Reform Commission. The vacancy has been filled on a temporary basis for much of 2002.

Recruitment action was finalised for the new position of Office Manager. The Accounts Clerk from the NSW Attorney General’s Library was the successful applicant.

The Technical Services Manager attended the Law Librarians’ Symposium held in Brisbane in September.

Reader Services Division
During 2002 staff of the Reader Services Division redesigned the Library’s home page to provide judicial officers and staff with more convenient access to legal information and library services.

The Library’s CD-ROM towers were replaced with a new caching unit. Reader Services staff worked with the Department’s Information Technology Services staff to ensure the transfer to the new unit caused a minimum of disruption to users. The new unit has improved the stability and reliability of the network and simplified the processes for loading new CD-ROM titles or updating existing ones.

Links to the most recent issues of electronic journals have been created on the Library’s home page to replace the hard copy Current Awareness Bulletin.

InfoCat, the online version of the catalogue, was made available to all staff with access to Infolink, the Department’s intranet site.

Work has commenced on developing a new Infolink resource. The site, to be called InfoSource, is being developed by the Department’s libraries to make a range of electronic resources and services available to all judicial officers and their staff. The site will consist of a home page with links to individual court pages.

The Inter-Library Loans Officer designed and developed an Access database to track requests for inter-library loans and document delivery. The new database is able to generate invoices and produce status reports, which was not possible using the Dynix software.

During 2002 the Reader Services Division staff answered 9635 inquiries from primary and secondary readers and the public. The Library requested 885 items from other libraries via the Inter-Library Loan system at a minimum cost of $26.40 per request. The Library lent a total of 1172 items to other libraries, of which 318 were made available to other libraries via the Document Delivery Service, the majority at fast-track rate. There were 191 items borrowed on day loan by members of the legal profession and litigants appearing in court.

Judicial officers and court staff (on behalf of judicial officers) borrowed a total of 26,779 items from the collection.

The Library was accessed approximately 56,000 times during 2002.

Technical Services Division
Space became a major issue again in 2002. Technical Services staff spent considerable time identifying and weeding duplicate material from the compactus units on Level 14.

The superseded Commonwealth and NSW legislation collections located on Level 1 were sorted, catalogued and housed with the remainder of the collection on Level 14.

The Library’s collections of photographs, pictures and plans were sorted and catalogued before being stored in protective slipcases.

During 2002 the Technical Services Division ordered 97 monographs, six new serial titles and eight new online services for the Supreme Court collection and 60 monograph titles and five new online services for the Joint Law Courts collection. From the material donated to the Library during 2002, a total of 312 monographs were added to the collection, 275 for the Supreme Court and 37 for the Joint Law Courts collection. From serial subscriptions a total of 1873 bound serial issues (which included legislation) were added to the collections, 1445 for the Supreme Court and 428 for the Joint Law Courts collection.

Systems Division
The Systems Manager was on secondment to LawAccess NSW throughout 2002. The position has been vacant most of the year with the work of the Systems Division being incorporated into the Reader Services Division. Systems staff are reporting directly to the Reader Services Manager. During the latter half of 2002 the Systems Manager decided to remain with LawAccess NSW and relinquish her substantive position with the Library.

The manager and staff of the Systems Division continue to do an excellent job developing, promoting and maintaining the network. Over the past 12 months, however, this work has become less technically oriented and more client focussed. The change can be attributed to the availability of upgraded hardware and software combined with improved technology.

For this reason, from January 2003 the Systems Division will cease to be a separate unit. The Reader Services Manager will take responsibility for all information services and resources irrespective of the format. The systems staff will move permanently to the Reader Services Division.

Administration Division
The Law Courts Library experienced a serious funding shortfall in 2002. NSW Treasury did not provide the Department with supplementary funding to meet the pay equity salary increases awarded to librarians and technicians.

Anticipated savings from the amalgamation of the two individually funded collections have not been realised as the State and Commonwealth Governments have not finalised the content of a Memorandum of Understanding designed to provide a new funding and management structure for the Law Courts Library. A number of meetings between the two parties over the past six months have failed to produce an agreement suitable to both.

Price increases for overseas publications combined with currency fluctuations substantially reduced the purchasing power of the book allocation. In an attempt to minimise the budget shortfall the Library Management Committee authorised further cancellations.

The Library’s allocation from the State for the 2001-2002 financial year for books and subscriptions was $385,887. Actual expenditure for the period was $414,897. For the 2002-2003 financial year the Library’s allocation from the State for books and subscriptions is $388,491, an increase of $2,604 on the previous year.


LAW COURTS LIBRARY MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE

Purpose
The purpose of the Committee is to determine Library policy and to oversee the expenditure of funding allocated by the Commonwealth and State Governments to develop the collection and services.

Work in 2002
The major issues for consideration by the Committee during 2002 were:

• continued negotiations throughout 2002 between the Commonwealth and NSW governments to develop a Memorandum of Understanding to provide a new funding and management structure for the Law Courts Library
• funding shortfalls
• subscription cancellations
• space restrictions
• occupational health and safety issues affecting the Library’s staff and clients.

Members during 2002
The Honourable Mr Justice Sheller (Supreme Court - Presiding Member)
The Honourable Justice Heydon (Supreme Court)
The Honourable Justice Lindgren (Federal Court)
The Honourable Justice Emmett (Federal Court)
The Honourable Justice Allsop (Federal Court - observer)
Mrs N Johnston (Principal Registrar and Chief Executive Officer, Supreme Court)
Mr W Soden (Registrar, Federal Court - observer)
Mr R Cox (Director, Management Services, NSW Attorney General’s Department)
Ms I Payne (Director, Library Services, Federal Court)
Ms L O’Loughlin (Librarian, Law Courts Library - Secretary).