General
> Am I eligible to use the IALS Library?
The Institute welcomes visiting legal researchers from any university worldwide. To apply for membership you just need to complete and submit one of our application forms and supply proof of your current academic status and registration. Please see the
Joining the Library page for full details of who may be admitted and how to apply.
> How do I get to the Institute?
The Institute of Advanced Legal Studies is at 17 Russell Square, London, WC1B 5DR. This is on the north side of Russell Square, on the corner of Bedford Way. The nearest underground station is Russell Square (Piccadilly Line).
> What are the Library's opening hours?
IALS Library is open at the following times:
Monday to Friday: 09:00 to 23:00
Saturday: 10:00 to 20:30
Sunday: 12:30 to 20:30
The exception to this is during summer vacation when we close at 20:00 on weekdays and all day on Sunday. We also close for bank holidays, occasional university holidays and during a two-week stock-taking period in September. Please check the
Opening Hours page on our website before visiting us.
> What are the Issue & Enquiry Desk opening hours?
The Enquiry Desk is open at the following times:
Monday to Friday: 09:00 to 19:45
Saturday: 10:00 to 17:15
Sunday: Closed
Please note that there is no access to the Short Loan collection or items kept in the Depository when the Enquiry Desk is closed. Books from the main collection can be issued at the Self-Issue Machine.
> How can I keep up-to-date with what’s going on at IALS Library?
The
IALS Website is the best place to look for details of all news and events. You can also like us on
Facebook and follow us on
Twitter. We publish a newsletter 3 times a year, which is emailed to all members and available on the
Newsletter page of our website. Everyone registered at the Library will also receive a monthly email of Library news.
Facilities
> How can I photocopy / scan?
The library has self-service photocopying and scanning facilities. Photocopying and scanning for academic use costs 5 pence per page. Please be aware of copyright law; see the posters in the photocopying room for further details. If your photocopying is for commercial purposes please contact the Issue & Enquiry Desk who can advise you on the cost of commercial photocopying.
Refer to our guide to
Printing, Copying and Scanning for more detailed advice.
> How can I print?
You can top up your printing account online or using cash at the Issue and Enquiry Desk. Once you have credited your account just send your job to print from one of our networked PCs and follow the instructions.
Refer to our guide to
Printing, Copying and Scanning for more detailed advice.
> What support do you offer users with special needs?
The library can offer support to any users with a disability or a specific learning difficulty and is committed to reviewing and improving these services. For instance, we can offer extended loans, help with book fetching, and help with databases.
> Can I reserve a research carrel?
Carrels are reservable study spaces comprising a desk, shelves and drawers. Carrels can be reserved by PhD and MPhil students, visiting academic and other senior readers. For more information, and to reserve a carrel, please refer to the
Research Carrels page of our website.
> How can I adjust the temperature in the library?
We encourage all readers to open and close the windows in the reading rooms, and adjust the blinds, as they see fit. Poles are dotted around each floor for the purposes of opening the windows, but if you can’t find one, or need assistance, please ask at the Issue & Enquiry Desk.
The librarians monitor the temperature in the reading rooms throughout the day. You will see us opening and closing windows to try to get the balance right for our readers.
> Is eating and drinking allowed in the library?
Eating and drinking is not permitted in the library. The exception to this is bottles of water.
Borrowing
> Can I borrow books?
The IALS Library is essentially a reference library, but we do offer limited lending for most of our readers. To find out what your borrowing rights are, please refer to the
Borrowing, Renewing and Returning page of our website.
> How can I renew my books?
Short Loan books can only be renewed in person at the Issue & Enquiry Desk.
Normal Loan books from the main collection can be renewed online via the
Library Catalogue. Simply log in with your library card barcode number.
If you have any problems please contact the Issue & Enquiry Desk (020 7862 5834) during its open hours or send us an email.
For further information please refer to the
Borrowing, Renewing and Returning page of our website.
> Why can't I renew my books?
If the system fails to renew your book, this may be because another reader has reserved it, you have already had three offsite renewals, or you have a fine of £3.00 or more on your record. You will need to return the book to the library.
> What should I do if someone else has borrowed a book I need?
If another reader has borrowed a book that you need, the best thing to do is to place a hold on that book, which will stop the person who has it from being able to renew it. You can do this by logging in to the Library Catalogue, or you can ask a librarian to do it for you.
> What happens if the book I need is missing?
Please report a missing book to the Issue & Enquiry Desk where you will be asked to complete a missing book slip. If you put your contact details on the slip, a member of library staff will let you know if the book is found.
When a book is reported missing, there are a number of places it might be. First we will check the reshelving shelves and the academic carrels. If the book is not found there will be check to see if it has been incorrectly shelved within the library or hidden.
Support and training
> What training do you offer?
In the Autumn term, we provide introductions to the Electronic Law Library, hands-on sessions on the use of Lexis Library and Westlaw, introductions to electronic sources of EU and public international law as well as the use of OSCOLA. Please refer to the
Training at IALS Library guide for the full programme. In the Spring and Summer terms we offer refresher training on these topics and run Word for Dissertation classes to help you with the formatting of your thesis.
If you need any assistance at any other time, or on a different topic, you can make a one-to-one appointment with a librarian. Please contact us
ials@sas.ac.uk to make an appointment.
> Where can I ask for help?
If you need help you can ask at the Library Issue & Enquiry Desk or email your question to
ials@sas.ac.uk.
> Can you help me find materials for my thesis?
If you need assistance searching and accessing the resources at IALS Library, please make an appointment for a one-to-one session with a librarian for reference advice. We can help you search the
Library Catalogue and the electronic databases we provide access to in our
Electronic Law Library, so that you can find the material you need. Please contact us
ials@sas.ac.uk to make an appointment.
Requesting photocopies and inter-library loans
The library participates in the British Library document supply service and handles requests for loans and photocopies of items. Because we are essentially a reference library with limited lending, we do not lend books from our open shelves, but it may be possible to lend older materials or previous editions. See the
Inter-library Loans Service page on our website for further details.
> Can you get a book for me on inter-library loan?
The IALS Library can make inter-library loan requests on behalf of Institute staff, Institute research students and visiting academics. University of London LLM students and academic staff are advised to contact their college library if they wish to request inter-library loans.
> Can I request photocopies from the IALS Library?
Collections
> What's in the collection?
IALS Library is the national research library for law, with particular strengths in the law of the UK, Commonwealth countries, the European Union, individual European jurisdictions and the United States. Public international law and comparative law are also very well covered. We work closely with other major law libraries to ensure that, across all sites, we have all the materials necessary for in-depth research, and also with the University of London to ensure that we hold complementary materials for LLM research.
To help identify which libraries hold material for different jurisdictions, please consult the
FLAG database, which contains collection descriptions of primary materials in print format for foreign jurisdictions held in UK libraries.
Please see our
Foreign & International Law Collections Guide for more information about our foreign and international law holdings.
> Can I recommend a book for you to buy?
Please do let us know if there is a book you need which we haven’t got by filling in our online
book recommendation form. If we decide to buy it for our collection we can let you know when it arrives. Otherwise, we can help you locate the book in another library.
> Do you have LLM examination papers?
The IALS has a complete set of intercollegiate LLM examination papers stretching back to our foundation in 1947. As well as this complete hardcopy set, papers since 1995 have been digitised and made accessible through a database, which can be found in our Electronic Law Library. These papers relate to the previous, intercollegiate system in place at the University of London. Since 2006, when the individual colleges withdrew from the intercollegiate system to offer their own LLM programmes, IALS Library has not received examination papers. As IALS is open to all University of London LLM students, there would be no effective means of ensuring that only students of a particular college could access the exam papers of that college. For recent examination papers, please contact your college.
> Do you have electronic resources and can I access them offsite?
Our electronic collections can be split into four broad categories:
Subscription databases
All of the electronic resources we subscribe to are listed in the
Electronic Law Library and are available onsite for academic research. See our
Databases Guide for further details. Remote access to electronic resources (from outside the Library) is made available on the basis of your type of IALS institutional membership in compliance with each service supplier's licence. Please see the table on the
Offsite Access page of our website to check which resources you are entitled to access remotely. Contact us if you need more assistance with offsite access or experience problems accessing our electronic resources.
Digital collections
IALS is committed to digital content creation and provision from its own collections and through co-ordination of content-building with other law libraries and subject specialists. The IALS Library Catalogue gives direct access to digital copies as PDF files as well as the details of the print originals. You can learn more on the
Digital Collections page of our website.
Open access collections
The
IALS Community on the School of Advanced Study’s shared e-repository known as
SAS-Space contains work by the Institute’s academic and library staff, students, visiting fellows and associated legal scholars. For example, there are copies of IALS MA and LLM student theses, a collection of articles from our journal Amicus Curiae and its predecessor IALS Bulletin. Much of the material is made available for academic use under an attribution-non-commercial-share alike creative commons licence.
Online legal research tools
The Institute has developed a wide range of online legal research tools as part of its mission to serve the legal research community across the United Kingdom. See the
Projects page of our website for further details.
> Do you have digital collections?
IALS is committed to digital content creation and provision from its own collections and through co-ordination of content-building with other law libraries and subject specialists. Please see the
Digital Collections page of our website for further details.
> Do you have an electronic repository?
The
IALS Community on the School of Advanced Study’s shared e-repository known as
SAS-Space contains work by the Institute’s academic and library staff, students, visiting fellows and associated legal scholars. For example, there are copies of IALS MA and LLM student theses, a collection of articles from our journal Amicus Curiae and its predecessor IALS Bulletin. Much of the material is made available for academic use under an attribution-non-commercial-share alike creative commons licence.
If you want to search across international scholarly electronic repositories use
OpenDOAR, a freely available Directory of Open Access Repositories, which has international coverage. A search on this service includes materials help in the IALS Community on the SAS-Space electronic repository.
Finding what you need
> How can I check if the library has a particular book, journal or report?
You can search the
Library Catalogue in many different ways. If you know exactly what you are looking for you can run a Title search or an Author search.
You also check journals and law reports on the
List of Serials on our website.
> How can I locate a particular journal article?
Run a Title search on the
Library Catalogue for the journal title (not the article title). The catalogue record will tell you the location of the print version in the library, and will also give you a link to the online version, if available.
For further information, and guidance on how to search for journal articles on particular subjects, please refer to our
Journals Guide.
> How can I find out if a journal is available online?
The easiest way to find out if IALS has electronic access to a journal is to check the record on the
Library Catalogue to see if a link is provided to the electronic version.
Another place to check is the
List of Serials on our website, which allows you to browse through journal titles alphabetically and to link straight through to the journal.
If you still can't find it, you might want to search some of the databases directly. Please refer to our
Journals Guide for further assistance. Don't forget that not all journals are available in an electronic format.
> How can I find recently published material on the catalogue?
When you have run a search on the
Library Catalogue you can organize the list of results by date. Just click on the “system sorted” box on the top right hand side of the screen and choose “newest first”.
> How can I find materials on a particular subject?
All items on the
Library Catalogue have been assigned subject headings by our cataloguers, which are not necessarily the words in the title. If you search for a broad subject heading, for example “Environmental Law”, the catalogue will offer you a list of all of the narrower subject headings beneath it, including “Environmental Law Great Britain”.
A really useful tip is, if you come across a book you find particularly useful look for the subject heading applied to it on the catalogue record. You can click through to all other items on the catalogue which have this subject heading.
You could also try the our
Subjects Guides which list the major books and journals we have on that topic.
> I've found the classmark, but where can I find the item?
> How can I find a list of new books at IALS?
It is easy to see what IALS Library has acquired in the last few months. Go to the
New Additions page on our website and click on “Latest acquisitions”. This will give you a list of all of the titles which the library has put on the shelves recently.
> Where can I find a list of legal abbreviations?
