Other benefactors
The Bodleian Law Library is fortunate to receive donations from individuals and smaller firms which go towards our collection development fund. These donations provide us with the opportunity to have resources to make special purchases which would otherwise not be funded from our annual allocation. Occasionally such a donation will be targeted at a certain practice area, such as taxation law, or human rights law. At other times it will be for a specific title, or even, occasionally, for a much needed piece of equipment.
Current benefactors include law firms Olswang, McGrigors, and professional services firm KPMG.
Allan Myers QC has generously provided funds to support the maintenance of the Australian collection, including the Australian database, Firstpoint.
Some of our previous benefactors include law firms Simmons & Simmons and Eversheds.
From the mid 1990's, the City Solicitors' Educational Trust generously provided funds to support the teaching of core undergraduate level subjects. We used those funds to purchase multiple copies of text books, extra sets of popular journals and law reports, and other core materials which supported teaching programmes and made a real difference to the learning resources available to our undergraduates. Several key database resources were funded by the City Solicitors' Educational Trust grant including the English Reports, the Times Law Reports, and the Criminal Appeal Reports.
Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP provided a generous donation to the Bodleian Law Library which was used to supplement our foreign law book purchases. This helped to ensure currency of core text books in that section of the collection. Funds were used to purchase the new edition of the US Code in paper, continuing an important resource, our holdings of which date back to 1926.
In 1998 The Rhodes Trust provided a generous donation for the establishment of a Trust fund to support the purchase of Commonwealth materials. The fund allowed the Bodleian Library to re-establish subscriptions to a wide range of law reports and journals from many Commonwealth countries which had lapsed with the inexorable increase in prices of a wide range of titles. The income from the Rhodes Trust fund assists with maintaining a substantial number of titles from Commonwealth countries.
In addition, the Law Library derives ongoing income for book purchases from two endowment funds established over 15 years ago. These came from the Club OASIS, an overseas lawyers' club, and included a generous endowment from the Horace W Goldsmith Foundation, based in New York. Purchases from this fund support the European collection. The other ongoing endowment fund is the Thomas Casswell Memorial Fund, which is used to support our Commonwealth materials collection.
We are extremely grateful for this generosity, and appreciate the thoughtfulness of donors who continue to provide the opportunity for us to maintain the best law collection in the United Kingdom.