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INTRODUCTION
In August 2017 Middle Temple Library re-organised its main collection of textbooks from alphabetical arrangement into subject order using the Moys Classification Scheme. This was part of a plan to classify all of the main texts in use at Middle Temple. The remainder of the books (approximately 20,000 volumes), which consist of previous editions and superseded books kept in the basement, are being classified for a move planned in August 2018. This article will cover both the process and impact of the first part of the project, and the progress of the second larger half of the project which is looming ahead of us.
THE LIBRARY
Middle Temple Library is a legal reference library which serves The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, one of the four Inns of Court (the other three being Inner Temple, Gray's Inn, and Lincoln's Inn). As well as being essential for admittance to the Bar, these Inns play a supporting and educational role in the lives of practicing and future barristers, providing them with a hub for their legal studies and careers. Each Inn offers a library service (amongst other benefits) to its members for both their studies and their legal work.
Though Middle Temple Library's history possibly goes back as far as the time of Henry VIII, the library really came into being in 1641 when a member of the Inn, one Robert Ashley, bequeathed 3,700 volumes of his personal collection to the Inn, as well as a sum of £300 to a library keeper. This generous contribution forms a part of the history of the library and is now part of a collection of over 9,000 early printed books and 300 manuscripts which are in addition to the core of our main collection containing over 250,000 volumes that cover a range of research resources on British, Irish, EU and US law in the form of law reports, journals, textbooks, loose-leafs, e-books and databases.
Middle Temple Library is very much what one might think of when they think of a library. A long airy space with a high ceiling and that distinctive gentleman's club feel in the decor and arrangement of materials. It's not such a surprise then that a library such as this might take a...