Justice Sir Kenneth Keith, ONZ, KBE, QC, of the International Court of Justice  has launched the International Law Library. 

The Library includes 76 databases with nearly 100,000 searchable documents; including databases of decisions of 35 international Courts and Tribunals; 27 databases of Treaties; UN resolutions; and thousands of law journal articles on international law. It is still expanding rapidly. 

A two page brochure outlining the Library is here.

The Library is being developed under an Australian Research Council infrastructure (LIEF) grant.

The Parliamentary Counsel Office (PCO) reprinting policy provides that a reprinting programme will be established each year, in consultation with key users of legislation.

The 2010 reprints survey closed on Friday 30 July 2009 and 48 responses were received, the majority of which were completed on behalf of an organisation or agency, and were submitted by solicitors and librarians. The 2010-2011 reprints programme has now been established, based on results of the annual reprints survey and in accordance with the PCO's reprinting policy.

Find more information here.

 AtoJs Online contains a collection of digitised volumes of the Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives (A to Js) published by Parliament. The collection currently covers the years 1862 to 1879.

The A to Js of the 1860s and 1870s cover a crucial period in our history – the land wars and the confiscation of land, the discovery of gold and influx of a great many migrants, Vogel’s public works and immigration programme involving a mass government-assisted immigration scheme and the building of railways and roads, and the abolition of the provinces and strengthening of central government.

A total of 600 volumes will eventually be digitised, with progress dependent on funding availability.

LexisNexis have released a new title “Limited Partnerships” as part of their publication Laws of New Zealand. The new title is written by Nick Wells (BCom, LLB (Cantab); BCA(Hons) (Victoria); MBA(Hons) (IMD, Lausanne)), Partner and Phillippa Wilkie (BA, LLB (Auck)), Senior Solicitor, of Chapman Tripp. The Laws of New Zealand is available on the NZLS library computers around the country.

Conflictz is a new database established at the Auckland Law School. It lists publications dealing with New Zealand conflict of laws/private international law in the areas of jurisdiction, choice of law, and recognition and enforcement of judgments in international cross-border litigation. The database is a comprehensive, systematic and up-to-date repository for lawyers, academics and students. 

Find more information here

From 1 July 2010 the cost of the library’s research service will rise from $35 to $40 per 15 minute unit. The urgent research fee, which is additional, will also increase to $40. All other charges will remain the same. 

Find a list of library charges here.

AustLII is in the process of creating new and updated subject specific libraries, bringing together in one place the relevant legislation, cases and other legal materials and websites relating to specific legal topics, such as privacy, indigenous law, workplace relations law and tax.

Find more information here.

Members can now search the online catalogue for texts, law reports and journals held by the main Law Society libraries. Holdings for the Otago Library are currently being added. For help with searching the catalogue contact a NZLS librarian in Auckland, Wellington or Christchurch. 

If you require a copy of a document or further research, you can make a document delivery or research request by contacting your nearest Library.

The NZLS libraries In Auckland, Wellington and Canterbury will close for Easter at 5.00pm on Thursday 1 April and will re-open at 8.30am on Tuesday 6 April.

Door cards which provide after hours access to the Auckland and Canterbury libraries are available from the library in Auckland  and from the Court itself in Canterbury. For access to the Wellington and Otago libraries please contact the libraries directly to enquire. 

For more information see Other services

Brookers and CCH online databases will be available in most NZLS branches by mid 2010. Some locations will take longer, to coincide with new courthouse development or to enable the provision of computer facilities.
For more information see LawTalk 742

The Wellington and Canterbury libraries will close for the Christmas holidays at 5.00pm on Wednesday 23 December 2009, while the Auckland library will close the following day, Thursday 24 December 2009, at 2.00pm.

Auckland and Canterbury will re-open on Tuesday 5 January 2010 at 8:30am.
Wellington will re-open on Monday 11 January 2010 at 8.30am.

A group of academics, editors and publishers led by Geoff McLay and Justice Chambers have developed a uniform New Zealand legal style guide. The New Zealand Law Style Guide seeks to remedy inconsistent use of styles and provide a unified framework that the courts, law schools, legal practitioners and legal publishers can follow. The guide will be available free on the Law Foundation website in late December 2009 at www.lawfoundation.org.nz but is available to buy in hard copy from Thomson Reuters.

For more information see LawTalk 742.

The Canterbury Library has introduced a new system of paying for printing and photocopying.

PINs are now obsolete. You will need a pre-paid card to do your printing and copying, although coins may also be used for photocopying.

Pre-paid cards are available from the library office and can have any amount added to them to a maximum value of $100. We can add value to the cards any time that the Library is open. Please note this does not include evenings and weekends.  

You can also use coins to add value to the card yourself, using the reloader by the photocopier. If you have only notes, or wish to be invoiced, library staff will reload the card. Please enquire at the library office.

Photocopying
You can use coins (not notes) for photocopying if you do not have a card. If you put more cash into the machine than you use, the surplus can be added to a card. There are no refunds.

Printing 
You will need a pre-paid card, in credit, for your printing. You cannot use cash for printing.

Weekends & evenings 
If you use the library in the evenings or weekends, you must have enough credit on your card for both your printing and copying requirements as, apart from a limited coin facility for photocopying, there is no back-up.

Casual card 
If you do not have your card with you and need to do copying or printing, please ask at the library office. You can use our card and then reimburse the library for the amount debited.

NZ Council of Legal Education has released the 2010 prescription for the New Zealand Legal Practice exam. The exam materials distributed to candidates by the NZLS library in Auckland, have now been updated and for the first time these are being provided electronically.

Due to this change the costs have been reduced significantly as there are no printing costs and hardly any postage charges for candidates overseas. It is also healthier for the environment.

The New Zealand Electronic Text Centre has scanned a large number of Māori and bilingual texts written in the nineteenth century, relating to NZ law, leading to the creation of a Legal Māori Archive.

This material will help the creation of a legal Māori Dictionary as well as helping all speakers of te reo.

A group of academics, editors and publishers led by Geoff McLay and Justice Chambers has been developing a uniform New Zealand legal style guide. They are hoping that the guide will be adopted by all New Zealand publishers, law schools and courts.

A draft consultation guide has been released and librarians from the Law Society library in Auckland attended a meeting recently to hear more about it. Submissions are due by 7 September.

The NZLS libraries  throughout New Zealand have standardised their charges for services. These charges came into effect on 1 July.

The phone numbers for the Auckland Law Library listed in the May 2009 version of ADLS Incorporated's NZ Barristers & Solicitors Directory are incorrect and the library’s email address is not shown.

The correct contact details are available on this website.

The library at the Whangarei High Court is moving to its new premises in the week beginning 27 July 2009. A new mobile shelving system is to be used in the new library to maximise space for practitioners. Due to the reduction in space, some infrequently used material will need to be removed.

The new librarian at the Whangarei library is Dianne Cooper. She will be working two hours on every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. Dianne has worked for the foreign and commonwealth office for a number of years in East Africa, London, Prague, Malta, Luxembourg, Mexico and East Berlin.

The door cards for after-hours access at the Auckland High Court library are being sent out on Monday 29 June, and should arrive before or on 1 July.

Invoices are still being processed for those who have applied. If you have not applied but want access, please fill out the online form, and return it to the library.

The new cards will work from 1 July. The old ADLS cards will no longer give access.

The immediate focus by the Law Library Board and the library managers is very much on maintaining and improving current services.  

Over the next six months, there will be a wider look, involving discussion with the profession, on the longer-term information needs of practitioners.

Law Library Board Chair Warwick Deuchrass says that he sees this initial stage as the “beginning of what will be an exciting future for the national law library”.

Read the rest of this story in LawTalk 731.

A Quick Find guide listing the law reports and journals held in the NZLS Library, Auckland is now available. This also describes where in the library the publications can be found. 

Kirsten Francis, the Otago Librarian, has been invited to speak at the American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) conference Thriving on diversity - Information opportunities in a pluralistic world  in Vancouver in November.

The presentation relates to her research for her MLIS (Master of Library and Information Servces) on the digitisation of indigenous cultural material, in particular the policies and protocols Australian and NZ cultural organisations (such as galleries, libraries ad museums) put into place to guide usage.

The new national law library came into existence on 1 February 2009 as part of the changes under the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006. The library was formed with the transfer of the Auckland District Law Society library to the New Zealand Law Society (NZLS) on 31 January, following the earlier transfer of the other district law societies library assets to the NZLS. Read the recent LawTalk article (Issue 724) about the new national law library.