In 1859, students studying law put a request to the University Council ‘praying that books prescribed for the Law Courses might be added to the University Library’. The first accession of law books was recorded in the University Council minutes in 1862.
In 1892 the dean of Law, Edward Jenks, requested a further purchase of law books. These included a complete set of English, Scottish and Irish Statutes; a number of standard works on English Law and several German works on Roman Law.
Yet law students continued to do without an adequate library. Giving evidence to the Royal Commission on the University of Melbourne in 1903, William Harrison Moore commented:
The Law School has for several years suffered from want of funds to purchase books for the library. Recently I have had to put some of my own books in the library for the use of students and in other cases to lend standard books which ought to be in the library.
Yet nearly fifty years later, in 1951, George Paton reported that the University was spending £500 per annum on law books, whereas the University of Sydney spent £900.
Not just books, but also space was lacking. As early as 1864, the University Library was overcrowded. John Minogue, who was a student at the University in the 1920s, recalled:
Significant as the library was, it was also frustrating. That small area had to serve the whole student body. The Law collection was minimal, as was reading space. This served to preclude some Law students from a close participation in the life of the University, in that they would spend a large part of their time in the reading room of the Public Library in Swanston Street, where there was an excellent collection of Law Reports and textbooks.
It was not until 1951 that a separate area was created in the library for legal texts. In 1959, when the General Library moved into the new Baillieu Library, the north wing of the Quadrangle became the Law Library. This space was soon filled, however, and in 1967 the Law Library expanded into part of the Scarborough building (now demolished).
In 2002, the Law Library (renamed the Legal Resource Centre) was relocated to the new law building in University Square.
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