A Sea of Books: Moys Reclassification Underway

Readers coming to the library during August have been confronted by a sea of books arranged on the desks on the main reading-room floor.

The main reading room floor

These are the monographs from the United Kingdom (Cw UK) section, and it’s amazing to think that all these books fit into such a relatively small space of shelving in the library. So, why have these books left their usual place and migrated to the desks? No, this isn’t a new initiative to bring the Law Bod books closer to you, our readers! Well, at least not literally closer, anyhow. In fact it is the final stage in our ongoing reclassification project. Soon the books will all be back on the shelves, but with a very important difference.

Readers returning to the library in September and October will find that the old law library shelfmarking scheme for UK monographs has changed to the Moys classification scheme. So whereas a shelfmark for a book on UK tort law used to look something like this: Cw UK 570 B345a2 ; it will now look something like this: KN30.BAR 2002. The reason for this change is to ultimately make the collection more accessible to you.

The Moys scheme is named after its creator, the law librarian Elizabeth Moys, and is tailor made for academic law collections. The Moys scheme gives a much more detailed subject classification that will make browsing the shelves an easier and more fruitful exercise. For example, where under the old scheme books on agency, contract, competition law, sale of goods, and finance were all mixed up together under Cw UK 530, under Moys they will each have their own separate sections.

This is an exciting new development for the Law Bod, and although things might seem unfamiliar at first, the staff will, as ever, be ready to help you find your way around.