By Thembinkosi Ngcobo

Access to the Law Society Library, run by the KwaZulu-Natal Law Society, and its services is strictly for attorneys and advocates, together with their pupils and candidate attorneys.

The library has a team of highly skilled and experienced librarians who can assist members of all law societies nationally in finding the information they need. It is no longer necessary to physically visit the library to use these services, simply contact the Law Society Library via their helpdesk e-mail system.

The library is able to assist with answers to inquiries on points of law by sourcing commentary and cases, precedents, updated legislation and much more. It must be noted, however, that the library personnel cannot provide legal advice or legal opinion.

In addition to searching the extensive collection of volumes, which include a wide range and extensive collection of textbooks, legislation, journals, law reports, government gazettes (both national and provincial) and databases, the librarians can search online databases, such as –

• Juta Law, which provides electronic full text, up-to-date legislation, law reports/cases, commentary, online journal articles and more.
• My LexisNexis, which provides up-to-date legislations, law reports/cases, commentaries, journal articles and forms and precedents, references such as Law of South Africa and more.
• Sabinet, which provides up-to-date and retrospective legislation, gazettes both provincial and national, law reports/cases, journal articles, municipal bylaws and more.
• Additional sources, include access to the Parliamentary Monitoring Group, SAFLII and the Organisation of South African Law Libraries. These resources supplement the library’s collection where financial constraints limit the material that can be purchased.

Other facilities in the library, include, computing, printing and photocopying.

The Law Society Library’s operating hours are from 8:00 am to 16:30 pm from Monday to Friday. For more information, contact the Law Society Library at (033) 345 1304/(033) 301 1621 or e-mail: help@lawlibrary.co.za or visit their website at www.lawlibrary.co.za.

Thembinkosi Ngcobo, Manager Library Service at the Law Society Library

This article was first published in De Rebus in 2017 (Dec) DR 17.