Paper presented at SIS 2012 Conference held at NIT Silchar organised by Dr. K C Satpathy

1. E-Resources for Law Libraries: A Study
By
Ram Kumar Dangi
Assistant Librarian
Banaras Hindu University,
&
Dr. Sanjiv Saraf
Deputy Librarian
Banaras Hindu University

2. LAW LIBRARIES AND E-RESOURCES
Law libraries have specialized reading materials
e.g. case laws,
statutory provisions,
rules framed under any Act,
objectives and reasons of any Act,
amendment of any Act,
Notifications issued under any particular statute,
debates in Parliament at the time of enactment of any particular Act,
or academic articles on a given topic in different situations.
In modern era use of e-resources increase in these institutions.

3. INTRODUCTION
Law libraries have specialized reading materials e.g. case laws, statutory provisions, rules framed
under any Act, object and reasons of any Act, amendment of any Act, Notifications issued under
any particular statute, debates in Parliament at the time of enactment of any particular Act, or
academic articles on a given topic in different situations.
In India, Some initiatives have been taken by government of India to providing free legal
information in electronic form.
Now a day the ICT has played its major role in every sector of society and libraries are not
untouched by ICT impact.
ICT is offering almost every activity in the library.
Now, publication of e-resources rapidly increased and a new era “paper less society has come.
The most of libraries particularly law libraries, developing e-resource collection for their users.
Government of India, Supreme Court of India’s library also has taken good initiatives to provide
free access to legal information.

4. FREE ACCESS TO LAW MOVEMENT
The Free Access to Law Movement is the umbrella name for the
collective of legal projects across several common law countries
to provide free online access to legal information such as case
law and legislation. The movement began in 1992 with the
creation of the Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute by
Tom Bruce and Peter Martin. The name Legal Information
Institute has been widely adopted by other projects. It is usually
prefixed by a country or region identifier

5. DECLARATION ON FREE ACCESS TO LAW
In October 2002 the meeting of LIIs in Montreal at the 4th Law via Internet
Conference, made the following declaration as a joint statement of their
philosophy of access to law. There were some further modifications of the
Declaration at the Sydney meeting of LIIs in 2003 and at the Paris meeting in
2004. Legal information institutes of the world, meeting in Montreal, declare
that:
Public legal information from all countries and international institutions is
part of the common heritage of humanity. Maximizing access to this
information promotes justice and the rule of law;
Public legal information is digital common property and should be accessible
to all on a non-profit basis and free of charge;
Independent non-profit organizations have the right to publish public legal
information and the government bodies that create or control that
information should provide access to it so that it can be published.

6. E-RESOURCES
E-resources may be categorized in following way:
e-Journals
e-book
e-Zine
e-Thesis & Dissertation
e-References sources
Online Database
Web Site
Digital Content
Electronic Link

7. The following e-resources are being used by the most
of law library users:
Open access e-resources for Indian legal information:
1. The Legal Information Institute of India (LII of India)
LII of India (http://www.indlii.org/) at present
has 50 databases, including over 300,000 decisions
from 37 Courts and Tribunals, Indian national
legislation from 1836, over 800 bilateral treaties, law
reform reports and about 500 law journal articles.

8. 2. INDIACODE
India Code Information System
(http://indiacode.nic.in/) is the official
database of the Government of India.
Contains all statutes enacted by the
Parliament. Relevant amendments are also
may be retrieved from the website.

9. 3. JUDIS
The Judgment Information System (http://judis.nic.in/) is free
of charge developed by Supreme Court of India Library. JUDIS
contains all reportable judgments of the Supreme Court of
India and other regional courts from 1950 to the present
(online and CD-ROM). JUDIS contains acts and headnotes for
the judgments delivered up to 1993 only. From 1994 onwards
the judgments do not have acts and headnotes.

10. 4. Parliament Information System
The Parliament of India Home Page
(http://parliamentofindia.nic.in) was inaugurated by Dr. Shanker
Dayal Sharma, the then President of India on 15 March 1996.
The Home Page containing the information generated within the
Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha has become an important source of
information and reference tool. the home page of parliament
provides the Constitution, Constituent Assembly Debates
, General Budget, Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in
Lok Sabha , Parliamentary Committees and their Reports
, , Biographical sketches of members , Lok Sabha Debates
(Proceedings) from July 1991 onwards ,Synopsis of Debates from
July 2000 onwards , Parliamentary Questions with Answers from
February 2000 onwards.

11. 5. Law Commission Information System
Law commission of India’s website
(http://www.lawcommissionofindia.nic.in) is excellent
source for getting law commissions reports in full text.
It provides law commission reports from 1st report to
latest (e.g. 243rd report).

12. 6. Government of India Portal
The National Portal of India (www.india.gov.in), developed with
an objective to enable a single window access to information
and services being provided by the various Indian Government
entities. The content in this Portal is the result of a collaborative
effort of various Indian Government Ministries and
Departments, at the Central/State/District level. This Portal is
Mission Mode Project under the National E-Governance
Plan, designed and maintained by National Informatics Centre
(NIC).

13. 7. India Legal Information Institute (IndLii).
The First Free Legal Web Portal of India was inaugurated by the Prime
Minister of India Dr. Manmohan Singh on the eve of Law Day in New Delhi on
25 November, 2006 at a glittering function held at Vigyan Bhavan.
virtual extension of India Legal Information Institute and is available at
www.indlii.org.
It is committed to
collect legal information about India for all available sources;
publish the same on the Internet with free and full public access;
grant rights to the public to use the legal resources without any restrictions;
create awareness about the availability of free legal resources;
remove hurdles coming in the way of providing free legal information;
coordinate with others Institutions to explore sources & utilization of legal
information.
The portal provides information about central and state laws, judgments of
various courts in the country besides news of the legal world.

14. Fee based database
8. Manupatra: Comprehensive database of judgments, case laws, reports, legislations,
forms, notifications, circulars regarding legal, tax and regulatory issues in India.
9. Westlaw: Comprehensive database of judgments, case laws, reports, legislations,
forms, notifications, circulars regarding legal, tax and regulatory issues in India and
aboard.
10. Hien Online:Hein online is an image based collection of legal periodicals.most of
the title are from USA and UK.
11. Lexis-Nexis: Lexis-Nexis provides e-journals, E-books in almost all field of
knowledge including law.
12. E-Jurix: E-Jurix is a collection of law information in India covering full text
judgments of Supreme Court, High Courts and tribunal decisions, etc.

15. E-CONSORTIA AND LAW LIBRARIES IN INDIA
Library consortia is a group of two or more libraries which have agreed to
cope rats with one another in order to fulfill certain similar need usually
resource sharing.
E-Consortia are basically evolving a form of cooperation among the libraries
which come together to share resources electronically.
There is no consortium for law libraries in India.
UGC- INFONET provides access to Westlaw, Hien-Online and Manupatra for
National Law Universities only. Institutions other then National University
have no such consortia facility for law users.

16. CONCLUSION
A law librarian has to furnish the desired information at once because the case is being argued in the Court and
desired information is needed in the course of the argument.
So a law librarian has to provide the information instantly without any excuse. Because of this reason, a law
librarian has to be a very alert professional and must develop his or her own tools and expertise to provide the
desired information instantly.
Due to explosion of knowledge and constraints on the financial resources, libraries consortia has emerged as a
necessity now a days for professional development of the staff, challenges posed by new technologies and
drastic cut in the library budgets.
E –resources are become important due to its features like fast searching, s simultaneously use, fast delivery
and remote location use.
Governments of India, Supreme Court of India have taken good initiatives for providing legal information in
form.
Some private service providers like Westlaw, Manupatra, E-Jurix, Hien-Online etc. are also providing legal
information in form on fee based.
IndLii also started services as law gateway in demand of free access to law movement

17. thanks