Old editions

The Law Society Library holds thousands of old editions going back over 150 years.

As well as old editions of textbooks the library holds every volume ever published of Halsburys Statutes, Halsburys Statutory Instrument, Encyclopaedia of Forms and Precedents, Atkins Court Forms, The White Book, The Green Book and many more.

To check for older editions see the library's catalogue. Material can be viewed in the library at Chancery Lane, London (please give 24 hours notice to fetch material as older publications tend to be kept in storage) or copies of pages can be e-mailed by the library's document delivery service for more details see Law Society Library - Lawdocs.

The Bodleian Law Library has a Secondary Collection section of over 60,000 volumes of superseded editions of UK and foreign law texts. All are available on open access shelves, and a reader is able to scan, for example, all editions of famous works side by side - e.g. all the editions of Chitty are housed in one spot, from the first onwards. The BLL also has all superseded volumes of the Digest, all editions of Halsbury's, and many other resources in this collection. When checking SOLO, the library catalogue, http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=1&fromLogin=true&dstmp=1358872352726&vid=OXVU1&fromLogin=true&fromLogin=true, superseded editions will have a shelf mark starting as SEC COLL. The depth of the collection has developed as a result of the Legal Deposit status of the BLL, meaning no older editions are ever discarded. See also : Bodleian Law Library Document Delivery.

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