LA206 Library & Legal Research Skills Session
Model Answers to Exercise 1
Q. 1. In a recent lecture about property offences your lecturer mentioned the
phrase ‘claim of right’.
Where could you find a definition of this phrase? List 1 hard copy source and 1 online
source.
Answer: To find definitions of legal terminology always start with a Law Dictionary.
Examples of hard copy law dictionaries are: Butterworths Australian Legal Dictionary,
Black’s Law Dictionary. These are held in the Law Reference Collection. Examples of
online sources are: Oxford Dictionary of Law (accessible from ‘Law Resources’ web
page; Black’s Law Dictionary (on Westlaw).
Comments re students’ answers: 80% of students got this answer wrong! For the hard
copy resource those students entered the phrase ‘claim of right’ into the Library
Catalogue and came up with the title of a medical law book. As this phrase is a property
law term you should have realized that this was incorrect. You should not be using the
Library Catalogue to find definitions of words or phrases – it is simply a listing of books
held by the library.
With respect to the online source most students simply did a Google search. The first
result of this search was an article on the doctrine of claim of right doctrine in US tax
law! Google is NOT suitable for searching for legal terminology.
Some students also said they would find the definition of ‘claim of right’ in Wikipedia.
Be very careful using Wikipedia. To start with this is a general reference tool, not a law
resource. Secondly this online encycloaedia can be edited by anyone, hence is not an
authoritiative resource for law research.
Those of you who said you would find a definition online in Halsburys are correct in that
you can find some information about the def4ence of ‘claim of right’, however a
‘definition’ is generally a brief statement which gives the meaning of a word or phrase,
hence a legal dictionary should be your starting point. From here you can move on the a
more detailed explanation in a legal encyclopaedia such as Halsburys.
Q. 2. Does the library have a copy of the 2nd edition of the book “Criminal
Defences” by O’Connor?
Answer: No, the library only has the 3rd edition. From the library home page click on
‘Search the Library – Books’ to search for the title in the Library Catalogue. This search
brings up only one item – the 3rd ed.
Comments re students’ answers: Most of you got this answer right, however 3 people
said that the library does have a copy of the 2nd edition. I’m guessing that when the title
came up in the search these students did not check further to see which edition the book
was. You need to take care with small details such as these.
Q.3. How many books does the library hold on the topic of criminal defences?
Explain how you got this answer?
Answer: The library has a few books on criminal defences, but simply typing ‘criminal
defences’ into the catalogue will only bring up one. That is the O’Connor book of that
title and only comes up because the phrase you typed in was the same as the title of the
book. What you also need to do is check the subject headings that this book has been
catalogued under. This shows that the subject heading we use for criminal defences is
‘Defence (Criminal procedure). If you now type this in to your search you will find 2
books listed. However you should also be aware that the American subject heading is
Defense (Criminal Procedure), so trying a search on this heading brings up an additional
3 titles.
Comments re students’ answers: At least all of you were on the right track here in that
you searched the Library Catalogue. All but 3 students found 1 item only. One student
checked the subject headings and tried searching under the heading ‘Defence (Criminal
Procedure)’ and found 2 books. Another student thought to try the alternative spelling
‘defense’. And yet another student thought to try alternative terminology to search under
– Criminal liability.
Q. 4. You have been referred to the following Australian High Court case: Brandy
v Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (183 CLR 245).
Does the library hold these law reports?
Answer: Yes the library holds the CLRs.
Comments re students’ answers: 2 students answered this incorrectly, saying that the
library did not have the CLRs, but the case could be found online.
How did you find the answer to this question?
Answer: Either by checking the list of ‘Law reports/legislation’ on the ‘Law Resources’
web page OR by looking at the list of law reports attached to the at the end of the shelves
containing the law report collection.
Comments re students’ answers: Many of you didn’t answer this part of the question, so
I’m not sure how you got the answer to the previous question. Some of you said you
would go to the section KM200-229 (Human rights) and find the reports but as the law
report collection is arranged by jurisdiction and not by Moys Classification Number I
don’t see how you could find them that way.
One student searched the Library Catalogue for these reports. Whilst that is a logical
approach the USP library does not include law reports or legislation in its catalogue.
Q.5.
You need to find this case: Swales v Cox (1981) 72 Cr. App. R. 171.
What does Cr. App. R. stand for? How did you find out?
Answer: To find the abbreviations Cr. App. R. you need to check a legal abbreviations
source such as the ‘Index to Legal Citations and Abbreviations’ (hard copy) or the
Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations (online – accessible from ‘Law Resources’ web
page) or the Monash list of legal abbreviations (also online)
Does the library hold these reports? How did you find out?
Answer: See answer to Q.4 above.
Q.6.
Are the PNGLRs available online? Does the library have a hard copy?
Answer: Yes the PNGLRs are available online – on PacLII. You can find the case of R v
Evi by using the alphabetical list of cases (Evi) or doing a search (Hint: use the Full
Search Form and search the PNGLL database only).
The library also has a hard copy of the PNGLRs (1963-1994; 1996). From the ‘Law
Resources’ page click on Emalus Library Pacific Law Collection, then go down to PNG
and click on ‘Legislation and Law Reports held at Emalus Library’. This tells you which
volumes the library holds. You must then go to the shelves and look in the indexes to
each individual volumes to find the case of Evi.
Comments re students’ answers: Most of you answered correctly that the PNGLRs are
available in both hard copy and online, however some students only answered the
question in part (re availability of hard copy OR online, but not both)
Find the case of R v Allan Evi. What is it about?
Answer: Intoxication defence
Comments re students’ answers: This question was answered well by most students.
Q.7. You need to find a copy of the Niue Civil Aviation Act 1999 (the 2007
consolidation is required because you need a copy which includes the 2006
amendments).
Can you find this on PacLII?
Answer: No, PacLII does not have consolidated legislation for Niue.
Comments re students’ answers: Many students said that this was available on PacLII. It
is very important to understand the terminology being used here and I think some of you
do not understand the difference between sessional legislation, reprinted legislation and
consolidated legislation: ‘Consolidated legislation – a republication of all principal Acts
of a jurisdiction in their amended format up until a specified date’. I specifically asked for
a consolidation which includes the 2006 amendment to the Niue Civil Aviation Act. To
do this on PacLII you would have to find the principal Act (that is the 1999 Act), then
check for amendments to that Act in every year after.
Does the library have a copy? Is this a hard copy or an electronic version? Outline the
steps you used to answer these questions.
Answer: The library has a 2006 consolidation of Niue laws which has a copy of the Act
with the 2006 amendment included. To find this go to the ‘Law Resources’ page, then
click on Emalus Library Pacific Law Collection. Go down to Niue and click on
‘Legislation and Law Reports held at Emalus Library’. This tells you that the library has
a hard copy of the 2006 consolidation.
Comments re students’ answers: Some of you obviously found this question challenging.
Again I refer to me comments on the previous question. Ensure you understand the
terminology, then check whether the legislation is available in a consolidated version or
only as sessional Acts.
Q.8. Use the Pacific Law Journal Index to find articles about customary law in a
jurisdiction of your choice.
Write down the titles of 2 articles.
Answer: From the ‘Law Resources’ page click on Pacific Law Journal Index. From here
you can do either a quick search, advanced search or visual search for your topic and
jurisdiction.
Comments re students’ answers: This question was generally answered correctly. Most
students found 2 articles on customary law in a jurisdiction of their choice.
Are these articles available online? Or in hard copy in the library?
Answer: From the list of results you can click on individual titles to see if these are
available online (in which case there will be a link from the catalogue entry to the full
text of the article). If there is no link it means that you must check the list of hard copy
periodicals held in the library (on the ‘Law Resources’ web page.
Q.9. Search the library’s full text online documents collection for articles about
crime prevention in Melanesia.
How many do you find?
Answer: By typing in the search as “crime prevention” near Melanesia (as explained in
the search tips) 5 documents are found
Comments re students’ answers: Most students found 300 items. This is because the
query was typed in as crime prevention Melanesia OR crime prevention in Melanesia.
This highlights the importance of following search tips or instructions to ensure the most
efficient searching and cut down on the number of results.
List the title of 1 relevant document.
Answer: Violence and governance in Melanesia
Comments re students’ answers: Most students found this one
What do you think is the biggest disadvantage of searching for articles in the library’s full
text collection?
Answer: Most of the articles are identified by an author, but not a title, so you need to
open each document to see what it is about.
Comments re students’ answers: As a majority of students found 300 documents due to
poor search technique, the biggest disadvantage of using the full text collection search is
that inefficient searching leads to huge numbers of results and hence frustration.