Law School Resources

The Sir James Dunn Law Library

Dalhousie University Schulich School of Law boasts an intellectually diverse and accomplished group of scholars with established national and international reputations. In recognition of their excellence, faculty members have been awarded numerous awards for their teaching and scholarship and have been appointed to a variety of public offices.     Full-time faculty

Dalhousie faculty members have a strong commitment to teaching, meeting individually with students, and otherwise promoting an open and engaging learning environment for students. They are also prolific scholars.

The Sir James Dunn Law Library is critical to law faculty and graduate student research.

Graduate students at the Schulich School of Law have access to a wide variety of library services which provide access to a wide range of scholarly materials in both print and electronic form. Graduate students are accorded generous borrowing privileges whereby they can sign out reserve materials to their carrels for seven days and general materials for four-month periods which can be renewed to a limit of one year.

Holdings: The library's holdings reflect a commitment to supporting the substantial scholarly research emanating from the graduate level programmes.

The library's holdings consist of over 290,000 volumes and microform. In addition, there is a substantial microfiche collection of graduate theses, treaties and historical documents. The library ranks highly in the number of volumes held when compared to other law schools in Canada. This reflects a remarkable achievement as one-third of the collection was destroyed by fire in 1985. This underscores the commitment of the faculty to ensure the current collection supports the scholarly endeavours of faculty and students.

Electronic resources: The law library has entered into a long-term agreement with the Killam Library's Computing Services, whereby electronic products already owned and future purchases will be made accessible through the main server at the library. This will make it possible for faculty, graduate students and undergraduate students to access legal materials via CD-ROMs and/or the Internet from the library, their carrels or from home at any time.

In addition to the legal materials available, it is also possible to access abstracts, indices and the full texts of electronic journals and interdisciplinary materials. The library provides access to legal databases such asLexis/Quick law and Westlaw as well as 3,000 electronic journals.

The library is a member of the Novanet Consortium, a partnership of academic libraries within the province of Nova Scotia. This partnership enables graduate students to borrow books and request articles not held on site at the law library if they are at one of the other libraries in the consortium. Delivery of books and articles from this consortium is guaranteed within 48 hours. The library is also part of a wider co-operative arrangement between all the law schools in Canada whereby any law school will send material to students without charge when requested within 24 hours. The library uses a Relais workstation to send and receive documents via the Internet for rapid delivery of documents.

International and comparative law: The holdings of the library in the area of international law, the core of which was acquired under the expert guidance of former Law Librarian Professor Emeritus Christian Wiktor, are acknowledged as one of the finest collections of international law material in any law library in Canada. The collection includes all the major sets of treaty compilations available plus an excellent collection of all the primary treatises. In addition to these materials, the library maintains subscriptions to a significant number of international law journals published world wide in several languages. This collection is used heavily by legal scholars across the country. Materials in other areas of international law are growing and compare favourably with collections at other major law schools across Canada.

Maritime law: The Sir James Dunn Law Library has one of the most comprehensive collection of maritime law publications in any Canadian Law Library. This collection is very strong and consists of the major treatises, journals, looseleaf services, government documents and monographs of a general nature related to this area of specialization. This collection continues to grow steadily as the library attempts to collect all the major publications in order to support the programmes in maritime law and law of the sea.

Environmental law: The library has an excellent collection of international and national environmental law materials. In addition to primary sources of legislation, the collection consists of reports of congresses, government documents, journals and treatises from all jurisdictions when possible, with a heavy emphasis on North America, South America, Europe and the Caribbean.

Health law: The Librarian and the Director of the Health Law Institute have added substantially to the basic materials available in the library to make this collection comprehensive, by including journals, government documents, loose-leaf services and other materials as they become available. The library's collection is augmented by other specialized collections held in the Kellogg Health Sciences Library and the Killam Library.

Other: In addition to the special collections noted above, the library has a very good collection of primary and secondary materials from most of the major common-law jurisdictions. The Canadian collection of primary and secondary materials (journals, texts, loose leafs) is comprehensive and is steadily being enhanced by access provided to electronic databases and CD-ROMS. The range of the materials available in the American collection is one of the most expansive of any Canadian law library. The library has complete sets of federal legislative material including complete sets of the Congressional Record and the Federal Register.

Facilities: The Sir James Dunn Law Library is one of the newest academic law libraries in Canada. After a devastating fire in 1985, the facilities were redesigned and expanded to provide for increased growth in the print collection and advances in technology. Each graduate student has a private study room ("carrel")  equipped with a desk, shelves and internet connections. Seminar rooms are available for group discussion and these facilities encourage interaction between graduate students, faculty and visiting scholars.

Training: The library is staffed by five professional librarians and seven support staff. Our professional staff offers all students training seminars in legal research methodology in formal groups and by individual appointment. A training programme specifically tailored to the needs and interests of graduate law students is available to all graduate students. This programme is aimed at meeting the needs of graduate students who are not familiar with the new electronic resources available, who are from other jurisdictions and need comprehensive bibliographic instruction in Canadian, American and English legal materials, or who need to enhance the research skills acquired as undergraduate law students. The library has staff who will be available to graduate students to enable them to take full advantage of all the electronic materials available to them, and to advise and instruct those who are new to the Internet and Computer Assisted Legal Research. Services to graduate students are continually being evaluated to ensure that the quality and quantity of legal materials are available to support and dissertation level research in students' chosen areas of study.

Research

The Schulich School of Law and Faculty of Graduate Studies provide on-going research support for students in progress. Most importantly, the Schulich School of Law has an "open door" policy for students.  While graduate students may have a formal attachment to their supervisor or mentor, they are encouraged to consult with other members of faculty who can provide useful advice in relation to their research. 

The second form of research support is access to travel funds for the purposes of research.  It is a well understood fact of academic life that no single institution can collect all the primary and secondary materials which serious graduate research may require.  Inter-library loans fill the gap, but it may be necessary to visit special collections in academic, governmental or non-governmental organization libraries in various parts of the world. Law graduate students have access to research travel grants from the Faculty of Graduate Studies Research Development fund, and funds are sometimes allocated from various grants within the Schulich School of Law.

Learning environment

A stimulating learning environment is an important aspect of graduate research outside the regular classroom. Graduate students are invited to participate in visiting speakers programmes and occasional seminar series held at the law school. They may also be asked to give occasional lectures for courses in their area of specialization which is an additional learning opportunity.

Visiting speakers: The Law Students' Society and the John E.Read International Law Society regularly invite speakers of interest to the law school.

Seminar Series: The Health Law Institute, the Marine & Environmental Law Institute and the Law and Technology Institute all sponsor seminar series to which graduate students are invited. In addition, graduate students are always invited to faculty seminar programmes, and to seminars presented by candidates for appointment to the law faculty.