MOYS CLASSIFICATION SCHEME FOR LEGAL MATERIALS
Civil law: (1) private rights of action for redress, contrasted with criminal law.
Common law: Family of legal systems deriving from the law of England. (2)
INTRODUCTION
The Moys classification scheme is most popular in the Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand. However, its use in Canada and the United States is not as wide. In British Columbia, Canada, for example, only the B.C. Courthouse Library, the University of British Columbia Law Library, and a number of private law firm libraries use Moys. According to a 2002 survey, only 17 out of 148 Canadian libraries were using the Moys classification scheme (3). While Moys continues to be used in these libraries, the increased use of KF Modified classification scheme seems to be a significant threat to Moys.
HISTORY
The Moys classification scheme was created in 1969 by Elizabeth Moys, a British law librarian and indexer who wanted to create an efficient and practical legal classification. At that time, a unified and standard classification scheme for legal materials did not exist; while many small law libraries created their own classification schemes, other institutions used such schemes as Bliss, the 340 class for Dewey, or the Los Angeles County Law Library Classification.
Today, Moys is used in many corporate law firms, court libraries, academic law libraries and the law division of some public libraries throughout the United Kingdom and North America. The Moys scheme is used to classify all common-law subjects of the English-speaking countries whose legal systems are directly derived from the law system of England. These include Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, West Indies, Wales and Scotland. Of course, there are many instances where common law may not be totally accepted. For example, In Canada, the province of Quebec is under the influence of the civil law, derived from the law of the late Roman Empire. In other cases, traditional law systems of a particular country complement parts of common law.
APPLICATION & IDENTIFYING CHARACTERISTICS
Moys was certainly aware of these existing conditions when she devised her scheme. She decided to group all common law together and allow the libraries in countries where a hybrid system or an indigenous law system is used to select their own classification scheme. Using the Moys scheme, the cataloguer can select specific classification numbers for subjects outside the law, general subjects in law, non-national law systems, and other modern legal systems used in Africa, Europe, South America, Asia and Pacific. The letter K is the base letter for all the subject headings in Moys. This scheme borrows classification elements from the Library of Congress (enumerative number building), and Dewey’s approach (building numbers by subject).
In addition to the flexibility of subject selection it allows, the Moys scheme effectively organizes and groups legal materials into the following categories:
· Primary law materials
· Secondary law materials
· Law reference materials
· Law journals/articles
This method of organization is efficient, because the nature of legal research is such that often, it is extremely important for primary and secondary materials to be distinguished from one another.
PRIMARY MATERIALS
Primary legal materials include statutes, cases and regulations - the law itself. In Moys such materials are organized according to their form:
|
KF |
United
Kingdom |
|
KF 20-34 |
English
legislation |
|
KF 51-54 |
English
reports of cases prior to 1865 |
|
KF 55 |
English
reports released after 1865 |
|
KF 60 |
English
general law reports |
|
KF 65 |
English
specialized law reports |
|
KF 101-60 |
Scottish
legislation and law reports |
|
KF 201-60 |
Irish
legislation and law reports |
|
KG |
North
America |
|
KG 1-280 |
Canada:
legislation & law reports |
|
KG 301-377 |
United
States: legislation & law reports |
|
KH |
Australia
& New Zealand |
|
KH 6-22 |
Commonwealth:
legislation |
|
KH 41-7 |
Commonwealth:
law reports |
|
KH 62-9 |
New
South Wales: legislation |
|
KH 75-7 |
New
South Wales: law reports |
|
KH 82-9 |
Queensland:
legislation |
|
KH 102-109 |
South
Australia: legislation |
|
KH 115-117 |
South
Australia: law reports |
|
KH 122-129 |
Tasmania:
legislation |
|
KH 135-137 |
Tasmania:
law reports |
|
KH 142-149 |
Victoria:
legislation |
|
KH 155-157 |
Victoria:
law reports |
|
KH 162-169 |
Western
Australia: legislation |
|
KH 175-177 |
Western
Australia: law reports |
|
KH 182-189 |
Northern
Territory: legislation |
|
KH 195-197 |
Northern
Territory: law reports |
|
KH 201-209 |
ACT:
legislation |
|
KH 235-298 |
Australian
Territories: legislation |
|
KH 306-322 |
New
Zealand: legislation |
|
KH 341-347 |
New
Zealand: law reports |
SECONDARY MATERIALS
Secondary legal materials provide commentary and interpretation of the law and include such materials as law review articles, legal encyclopedias, and treatises.
|
KA |
Jurisprudence |
|
KB |
General
& comparative law |
|
KC |
International
law (primary & secondary materials) |
|
KD |
Religious
legal systems |
|
KE |
Ancient
& Medieval law |
|
KL |
Legal
systems - Common law (here works with topics such as legal history,
legal profession, trends, and education can be entered.) |
|
KM |
Public
law – Common law (Criminal and taxation laws / administrative &
constitutional laws |
|
KN |
Private
law – Common law (Contracts between families, businesses, etc.) |
|
KR |
Africa
(primary & secondary materials) |
|
KS |
Latin
America (primary & secondary materials) |
|
KT |
Asia
and Pacific (primary & secondary materials) |
|
KV |
Europe
(primary & secondary materials) |
|
KZ |
Topics
outside law |
REFERENCE LAW MATERIALS
|
REF/K2 |
Digests
and encyclopedia |
|
REF/K40 |
Legal
bibliographies |
|
REF/K190 |
Legal
research |
|
REF/K200 |
Abbreviations |
|
REF/K210 |
Law
dictionaries |
|
REF/K220 |
General
dictionaries |
|
REF/K230 |
Specific
subject dictionaries |
|
REF/K250 |
Legal
directories |
|
REF/K330 |
Encyclopedias |
LAW JOURNALS
K1 In Moys, legal journals are catalogued by title rather than subject. This is because lawyers, judges and legal researchers have a tendency to locate journals by title rather than subject or jurisdiction.