Law Library Shelving Introduction
As part of your duties at the Law Library you are required to re-shelve stock and shelf tidy. You will often find that students have left piles of books at the end of a shelf or on desks. There will also be returned books on the Reshelving Bay.
Gather all returned books together and place on the reshelving bay.
Start by filing returned books into the correct sequence (fine sorting).
- Check that the shelf numbers are in the correct order.
- Books should be pulled forward on the shelf so that the spines are flush with the shelf edge.
- As you move the books, you should check behind to make sure that no books have been pushed behind out of view.
- If some shelves in a bay are tightly packed, try to even out the stock so that there is some space on all shelves in the bay. If there is no space on the shelf for a book, look at the shelves within the shelving bay to see if there is space and move the books around to create space where you need it (perhaps close a gap on a higher or lower shelf). If there is no alternative space, place the book back onto the reshelving shelves/overflow trolley.
- Overflow trolleys should be fine sorted and run left to right. Top to bottom on one side, then left to right, top to bottom on the other side.
If you are unsure about where a book should go then please ask another member of staff. You can also look an item up on Library Search and the location of each book should be displayed next to ‘Check holdings at …’
Shelving Books in the Correct Area
Books with the prefix REP identifies them as a REPORT.
Reports can be located in various areas of the Law Library: English Law Reports, Specialist Law Reports, British Law Reports, Foreign Law Reports, Nominate Law Reports, the International Law Room and European Law Room.
You can check the location on Library Search if you are not sure where the report belongs, or leave it to one side with a note for Law Library Staff the next day.
We have a complete run of The Law Reports, the All England Law Reports and the Weekly Law Reports in the Law Library, with one or two copies of each volume.
Historically, the Law Library held multiple copies of each volume and may be marked with a blue spot on the spine above the shelfmark label. These blue spots can now be ignored/removed as they are redundant.
Foreign Law Reports are all shelved at the end of the library in the Silent Study Area (rear of House 21).
The classification only states that they are reports (REP) but if they are any of the following, they belong in the Foreign Law Reports section: Australian, Commonwealth, Dominion (Canadian), Irish, New Zealand, League of Nations and United Nations.
Specialist Law Reports are all shelved in the very end room past the main book collection and corridor of English Law Reports and in the room on the right (front of House 24).
As with the Foreign Law Reports, the classification only states that they are reports (REP). Examples of Specialist Law Reports would be the Criminal Appeal Reports and Lloyd’s Law Reports (shipping).
International Law books will all be classified by the number 341.
These are keep in the International Law Room at the far end of the library. They are not shelved in sequence with the main book collection at the opposite end of the library.
In this room you will find books, journals and reports.
European Law books are all classified by the number 348.
As with the International Law books they are shelved separately from the main book collection in the European Law Room.
In this room you will find books, journals and reports.
Items with the prefix PER will be a Periodical/Journal.
We have bound journals and current journals in the library, across three areas.
The shelving for bound journals starts in the Bound Journals A-H room and runs in sequence around into the corridor (Bound Journals H-M) and ends in the Mooting Room (Bound Journals M-Z).
Current journals were formerly shelved in the Current Journals Room. they may now be found alongside the bound journals.
These books are classified using the Dewey Decimal System and have the prefix 'LAW LIT' on the spine. They make up part of our Law in Literature Collection.
These books are shelved in the Reference Room on the shelving bay next to the power-assisted door.
This collection also contains DVDs that have spine labels that just say ‘LAW LIT’. LAW LIT DVDs should be shelved alphabetically by title, ignoring ‘The’ as a first word.
These books have Be Well as the prefix, not LAW, and classified using the Dewey Decimal System.
These books are to be shelved at the end of the English Law Reports corridor.
The Law Library's Short Loans are shelved in the Reference Room at the bottom of the reshelving bay by the office. . They can be borrowed for up to 2 days.
They are shelved in standard shelfmark order.
We also have a selection of Short Loan Articles. These are organised by author's surname and can be found in the top drawer of the filing cabinet in the Law Library Office.
These articles can be issued and photocopied (unless marked otherwise). However, they must remain in the library.
While most Government Publications can be found online, we have a collection of Statutory Instruments (SIs or Orders), Law Commission Reports and Local Acts (from 1945 onwards) in the Library.
Statutory Instruments and Law Commission Reports can be found in the Silent Study Area; Local Acts in the Old Postgraduate Room.
Law Quick Shelving Guide
The cutter letters in the shelfmark usually match the first three letters of the author’s surname, or of the title if it is an edited work.
If there are books classified by the author’s surname and there is more than one author with that name, first group works by author, then file alphabetically by first name/initials. [See red oval indicators on the image below, e.g., works by Anne Brontë are shelved before those of Charlotte Brontë or Emily Brontë.]
Keep all of the same shelfmark and author together, and file alphabetically by title. Ignore any article (e.g., The, An or A) if it is the first word in a title and file by the second word. [See yellow rectangle indicators on the image below.]
When the cutter letters are linked to the author’s surname rather than the subject of the book, you need to file all the books by that author (with the same classification number) into alphabetical order by title. [See green diamond indicators on the image above.]
If the cutter is related to subject or title, and the classification number is the same, file alphabetically by title, ignoring any article (e.g., The, An or A) if it is the first word. If the titles are similar continue to file alphabetically and move onto subsequent words to determine the correct filing order. [See blue rounded rectangle indicators on the image below; e.g., Goodhart would be followed by McCorquodale.]
For books with the same classification (shelfmark) and title, file by author’s surname.
Items with (brackets) in their cutter – shelve books with the same shelfmark minus the ( ), then shelve everything with ( ) after that using the ( ) to sort alphabetically. For example, shelve 341 BRO, then 341 BRO(Hat) and 341 BRO(Smi), etc.
Editions should be filed in numerical order from the oldest edition to the newest. Each edition should be kept together.
The example shows books from the Philip Robinson Library. Law Library titles may have red Old Edition stickers applied to their spines, or perhaps a blue Ref label on the spine. Shelve in edition order as explained above; when there are multiple copies with one copy as Ref/Not for loan, shelve that first, followed by the long loan copies.
Volumes should be filed in numerical order. These often feature Roman numerals; if you don’t understand these, please ask or use an online tool to check the meaning: romannumerals.org/converter.
Find Out More
- Law Library Student Aide shelving guideA detailed guide for shelving in the Law Library.