Request Library Purchase

We support you to source resources for your research, teaching and learning in line with our General collection guidelines.

Who can use this service

  • Monash Staff
  • PhD students

Do you have access to the resource you need?

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The resource you need is not available

If the resource you need is not available at Monash and you only need access for a limited time or for a few articles, we may be able to provide access via Interlibrary loan. If the resource isn’t available at Monash or suitable for Interlibrary loan complete the Request Library Purchase form to suggest an additional resource.

We will consider your request based on our General collection guidelines.

Please note that we will acquire an electronic format of resources where available so that we may provide greater access to our users.

When requesting an ongoing journal title or database subscription

  • If you only want some articles from a journal, please proceed with an Interlibrary loan request.
  • We require detailed information in the Notes field of the Request Library Purchase form to support your subscription resource (i.e. journal title or database) request. This information from you should provide a context for the requested material in comparison with existing similar content and the usability beyond your immediate need.
  • When assessing ongoing journal or subscription requests we may need to communicate with others in the discipline about demand for the resource and/or ask you for more supporting information.

Example justification for a single journal title request:

“I teach and research in migration studies, where my goal is to understand and communicate the lived experiences of migrants. An academic subscription to XXX journal would be of great benefit to my research and teaching. The service has three key qualities that make it particularly useful: it has articles from up and coming migration scholars, it provides expert commentary on migrants lived experiences, and it does so in a cost-effective manner. I am interested in using this in my own research and in using this to communicate my research into teaching contexts, and to include XXX journal as a tool for students doing their final research assessments in ATSXXXX and ATSXXXX. This journal will be highly valuable in finding unique information to add completeness to the topic at hand.”

Example justification for a new database/platform:

“Context I teach and research in digital media studies, where my goal is to understand and communicate the political economic developments in the digital technology sector. This is a complicated environment, and access to information about many companies and individuals within the sector tends to be highly protected. At present, our resources and evidence are generally reliant on executive speeches, various computational and exploratory analysis techniques, and what are effectively marketing and public relations statements.

These are effective methods in their own right, but only show part of the picture. An academic subscription to Law360 would be of great benefit to my research and teaching. The service has three key qualities that make it particularly useful: it has dedicated access to digital legal documents from the US Court system in a centralised manner, it provides expert commentary on tendencies within the legal system, and it does so in a cost-effective manner.

I am interested in using this in my own research and I am also interested in using this to communicate my research into teaching contexts, and to include Law360 as a tool for students doing their case studies research final assessment in ATS1280 (~550 pax). Other lecturers and researchers (and perhaps students) in business and law areas would no doubt find Law360 highly valuable in finding unique information to add completeness to the topic at hand.

Case Many of the major platforms that we research have legal cases in the US for which we cannot access legal statements under any existing library service. This includes both companies with headquarters outside the United States, such as Tencent, and companies that do not provide annual SEC filings or reports, such as Epic or Valve. Law360 provides us with another avenue for our evidence: easy access to transcripts and docket submissions to court cases, supported by commentaries on the court cases written by Law360.

Legal dockets and transcripts contain statements from executives and representatives in court that provide us with amazing insights into corporate operations. For instance, last week I was granted 7 days of free access to Law360, where I was able to determine that Valve computing does not have a traditional managerial structure – indeed, no one in the company has a job title. This is extremely odd, and a major revelation for a major digital platform worth approximately USD38.8 billion a year. I discovered that Microsoft loses approximately USD100 on every Xbox digital console that they have sold. This has been reported elsewhere, but not in a systematic or attributable way.

Law360 has provided me access to analyses of the recent and significant rise in anti-trust cases within the digital media industry, with an assessment of future trends within the industry. Law360 also provides this information with metadata that I have already used to map out legal cases by district, and I hope to improve this by further itemising it by the type of suit.

Details Docket information is available through the PACER legal case search system, but PACER charges individually on a per-page and per-search basis. These searches are not centralised, but rather devolved to individual court district databases which tend to be provided as older, non-dynamic Web 1.0 style database lookups usually lacking modern user interface tools for navigating the database.

Users are charged per page refresh in this instance. While this works, and I do use it, it does mean that researching across the sector is difficult and potentially costly. Law360 caches its own copies of docket information from PACER without charge to users. In the instance that Law360 has not cached a copy of an item, the user will be directed to the relevant PACER item, and is informed before any charge is made to their PACER account (if any). If so, the item will then be cached by PACER for the future.”

After submitting a purchase request 

  • For electronic and print books we will email you within 7 working days with the status of your request and you can check the progress of your request via My Account > Requests.
  • Physical items may take from a week to several months to arrive, depending on their availability.
  • Journal titles and/or database subscription requests that require an ongoing financial and management commitment require 6 to 12 months to assess for possible inclusion into the collection.

Other ways to request resources

Need help? Contact librarians@monash.edu