A little over a year into the new era, and the introduction of Electronic Legal Deposit (eLD) is beginning to be seen on the Law Bod shelves – but only among the journals. At the time of writing this post, there are no e-books accessible via eLD for law, or indeed any other subject.
The impact among the law journals is the result of the publishers Wiley, Emerald and Edinburgh UP being early adopters of electronic deposit for their journal titles.
The consequence is that issues of 14 law journals are now no longer arriving as physical (ie printed) items from the Copyright Agency
Agent’s website
to sit on the Law Bod shelves, but their contents have become available to read online via Bodleian library computers. Just as readers have always had to come to the Law Bod to read issues of journals deposited in print form, so they will still need to come to a Bodleian Reading Room and be logged into a Bodleian computer to read issues deposited via eLD.
Current holders of an Oxford Single Sign On may be reassured to know that for all the law journal titles currently coming via eLD (see list below), the Law Bod also has an electronic subscription to them. Indeed, OSS holders are encouraged to access these journals via the subscription database option, as this will have much better functionality, as well as being accessible to them wherever they have access to the internet. (Not just when they are sitting at a Bodleian computer.)
Below is a list of those law journals for which the copyright copy is now coming to the Bodleian under eLD. (Clicking on the title will take OSS holders to the relevant databases for the subscribed service for each journal.) A couple of paragraphs below the list will be a brief explanation of how readers can get to the eLD copy.
- Journal of Law and Society
- Edinburgh Law Review
- Howard Journal of Criminal Justice
- Journal of Empirical Legal Studies
- Corporate Governance: an international review
- International Insolvency Review
- Journal of World Intellectual Property *** (General 300 J45) ***
- International Journal of Law and Management
- Journal of Money Laundering Control
- College Athletics and the Law
- Journal of Law , Medicine and Ethics *** (USA 300 J85) ***
- Journal of Legal Studies Education
- Juvenile and Family Court Journal
- Law and Policy
In two instances, Journal of World Intellectual Property and the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics (indicated *** in the list), the Law Bod will continue with a subscription to the print copy as well as to the electronic version, so issues for these journals will continue to arrive at the given shelf marks. For the others, 2012/2013 will mark the last physical issue to arrive. Where the print copy has indeed stopped arriving, staff in the Law Bod have inserted a slip at the end of the print run with the encouraging reassurance along its spine “This journal continues online.”
Let us suppose a reader has come into the Law Bod and has been browsing through the print holding of issues of the Howard Journal of Criminal Justice in the Criminology section on Floor 2. Briefly disappointed that the latest issue on the shelf is v.52(2) of 2013, the slip does its work and he realises he needs now to go to a library computer. (Either up a floor in the Small Computer Room on Floor 3 or down to the Freshfields Computer Room on Floor 1)
Having logged in (using Bodleian Library username and password), and launched a web browser, the next course of action is the intuitive one: to search for the journal title in SOLO and look for the online/electronic resource options among the results.
The eLD version should be displayed after any subscribed access – but can always be identified by the notice indicated by the arrow in the screen shot below.
How eLD journals appear in SOLO results
As our imagined reader is indeed logged into a Bodleian library computer, the route to view articles in the eLD version starts with click the View Online link under the notice. The subsequent results page will have the articles deposited electronically from this journal listed down the central section. However, the articles are not grouped in the arrangement they would have had in the printed issues.
The articles from the journal can be sorted by the drop down menu options (eg by date newest or oldest), or the left hand column can be used to find articles by author. (Their names are listed alphabetically – use the “Show 83 more” tab to see them all)
Under each record for an eLD article there is a View Online link. The green How else can I get this? link is a useful prompt to OSS holders that they can get it via a subscription service too.
If our reader does click on the View Online link for the eLD version while logged into a Bodleian Library computer, he should next see a screen with the news that it is Establishing connection to Legal Deposit Access via Ericom AccessNow – then, in due course, one last screen (before the article itself!) where the conditions of use can be read, and accepted with a click. This is provided no one else is already reading the article. Remember, publishers only deposited one copy of the printed issue under the old system. Although the issue deposited may now be electronic form there is no possibility of multiple concurrent access. (Another reason why OSS holders are recommended to go with the alternative providers, not eLD.)
As our readers often know exactly the author & title details of the articles they want to read in advance of coming to the Law Bod. In which case they might like to make use of a new eLD specific search tool in SOLO.
For example, supposing the desired article is Yardley & Wilson “Prison for beginners? The strengths, limitations and potential applications of Prisoner Handbooks” in 52(5) of the Howard Journal. When on the SOLO search screen (via a Bodleian computer), a quicker search strategy would be to click on the Electronic Legal Deposit tab, then to type in author surname and the most distinctive keyword(s) from the article’s title – as below:
Using this tab in SOLO will limit the search only to eLD material – and strategic use of name/keyword combinations will further restrict the number of results. If a distinctive enough combination of search terms is used, then there may only be one exact match on the next screen.
As before, when at a Bodleian computer, the View Online link takes the reader through to the eLD article; the green How else can I get this? shepherds OSS holders to the subscribed service(s) which also have the article.
If you would like more information on how to find eLD material, the Bodleian’s SOLO Libguide includes an eLD page with audio-visual guidance.
Should you encounter any problems when in a Bodleian Reading Room, you are very welcome to ask a member of staff for help – we are learning this new system too!
If you are interested knowing more about eLD in general, there is more detailed information on the central Bodleian website
