Podcasts @ Your Library - South Wing Level 3

The Law Library is contained on this floor and consists of secondary legal resources in the form of books, journals and primary legal materials which are Statutes and Law reports. It also contains a computer laboratory with access to the Internet and hundreds of electronically available legal resources.

Beginning just outside the glass doors you will be standing in the Exhibit Area, where art is displayed throughout the year.

Walk though the glass doors, on the way in noting the floor plans that will help orient you to the Law Library.

Stopping just inside the entrance you will see a group of five computers that can access the Library’s Homepage, catalogue and the Internet. Login should not be required.

At the entrance you will also notice some sorting shelves. Books used on this floor should be returned here. Remember that if you are looking for a book that should be available it may have been returned here by another student.

Turn to your right with your back to the sorting selves. You will see to your left a series of 8 Shelves that house the book collection for law.

Walk down the aisle directly in front of you between the books shelves on your left and the maroon partition on your right, towards the windows. Behind the partition you will see the compactus. Walk towards the windows until you see a central aisle or walk way on your left.

As you go past the first 11 bays of the compactus, note the numbers on the top of each unit, you will see we have a variety of Australian Government publications. These include parliamentary papers, Federal and State votes and proceedings, Notice papers, Commonwealth government gazettes and Budget related papers for Western Australia and the Commonwealth.

The rest of the compactus contains primary legal materials for jurisdictions such as Canada, the United States, Hong Kong and New Zealand and the other Australian states excluding Western Australia and the Australian Commonwealth.

The central aisle is opposite the compactus labeled 14/15. Turn left and go down the aisle passing the book Shelves on your left and study tables and carrels on your right.

You will see a Shelf labeled number 30. This holds Government Reference includes the Parliamentary debates or Hansard of the Commonwealth and Western Australia.

The remaining Shelves – from 31 to 35 are labeled Reference and contain primary legal materials including:

• All England Law Reports
• English Reports
• Australian Parliamentary Bills and Explanatory memoranda
• Commonwealth Acts
• Statutory Rules

Continue walking down the central aisle with the computer area, which is called e-library 3, on your left, and tables and carrels on your right.

When you get to Shelves 36 and 37 you will see these contain law Reports for the Commonwealth of Australia. Reports are arranged alphabetically within each jurisdiction.

Keep walking until you come to Shelf 38 which contains the Australian Digest, the encyclopedia Laws of Australia and the Australian Case Citator.

Shelf 38 to 40 contain WA primary legal materials including:

• Western Australian Bills
• Statues
• Reprinted Regulations
• Regulations
• Government Gazettes
• WA Industrial Gazette
• Western Australian Law Reports

After this you have the Law Reports for other Australian states in Shelves 40 to 41 in the following order:

• South Australia
• Northern Territory
• Queensland
• New South Wales
• Victoria
• Tasmania

Legislation for these jurisdictions, states, are in the compactus.

Continue on until you reach Shelf 41.

And to remember this order simply visualize Australia starting with South Australia and travel clockwise around the country ending up in Tasmania.

Look towards the window and you will see a secluded area for quiet study. This is where you will also see the new law journals display area.

Walk away from the window head up the aisle with the postgraduate study rooms to your right.

On your left you will see an extensive collection of Law Reform Commission reports. These include publications of The Australian and Western Australian Law Reform Commissions and other overseas jurisdictions.

You should now have arrived in the corner of this floor and will see in front of you the Science Librarians Office. You will see the shelves here are labeled Journals. The Law Journals are all arranged here in alphabetical order. At the end of the Shelf you will notice signs directing you to many of Murdoch’s Online Journal collections. Turn left and walk forward a little.

On your right on the wall is a fire extinguisher in case your legal arguments become over heated and behind that a photocopy room. In the Photocopy room you will be duly mindful of the Copyright Act of 1968.

At the end of this row of Shelves you will see the Law Library Reference Collection which contains dictionaries and directories for Australian law materials. You will also see international encyclopedias are kept here.

Pause briefly in front of a large cluster of computers. This is E-Library South Wing Level 3. There is a print station attached to these computers.

On your right is a discussion room designed for quiet scholarly discussion. This will not usually include the legal ramifications of what happened in Big Brother last night.

Adjacent to the computers you will find the law Research Desk. Here during very busy parts of the semester you can find Senior Law Students, who will be happy to assist you with your legal research and help with your Online legal research Quizzes.

As we walk back towards the entrance we go past the Copyright Coordinator’s Office and the Business & Law Librarian’s office on the right.

Placed out side this office is a display case showcasing recent publications of Law School Academics.

Look to your left and you will see Book Shelf 8 which houses the pamphlets and oversized print materials.

At the end of each book Shelf you will find signage with popular law subjects – for example Shelf 6 notes that Torts is at 346.3.

Continue to walk back towards the floor entrance.

You will see on your right the Resource room for students requiring Assistive Technologies. Access to these resources is arranged through the Equity Office.

That concludes our tour of the law library. One other place you might need to look to find law materials and loose leaf publications is in the Reserve Collection.

Thank you for choosing Murdoch and this Podcast.

We hope that you enjoy your time at Murdoch.

Remember Discoverers are Welcome and you are welcome to discover in the Law Library.