The Inner Temple Library will CLOSE at 2pm on Thursday 18 April to allow time for the building to be cleared by mid-May with work on Project Pegasus starting soon afterwards. It is expected that the building project will take approximately twenty-two months to complete.

Alternative premises to house a temporary Library for the duration of the project have been taken at 10 Fetter Lane (5th floor).

The temporary library will continue to provide a full range of services to users. These include provision of textbooks (current and old editions), journals, law reports and the Commonwealth collection; access to subscription databases, including Lexis Library and Westlaw; an enquiry service; a document supply service; legal research training and web services. Opening hours will remain the same. Library staff will retrieve books from the Littleton Basement in response to users’ requests as they do now.

More information on the opening date of the temporary library will be posted on our website as it becomes available.

The Library will close at 2pm on Thursday 18 April 2019. This calendar gives the opening hours of all four Inn Libraries over the Easter vacation.

A list of New Titles and New Editions received by the Library between January and March 2019 has just been published.

On Monday 25 March at the Inner Temple Professor Michelle O’Callaghan, Director of the Early Modern Research Centre and author, will talk about Law Sports: Revelling at the Elizabethan and Jacobean Inns of Court.

The grand Christmas revels performed at the Inns of Court were spectacular events. They have proved to be a very rich resource for cultural historians seeking to understand how a civic identity took shape at the Inns in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This lecture will explore the range of individuals and professions that took part in these revels in order to re-assess our understanding of the early modern Inns of Court as a community.
The lecture will start at 6pm in the Parliament Chamber and will be followed by a drinks reception.

Tickets: Members and public: £10.25 (IT Students free).

Book at www.innertemple.org.uk/lawsports or call the Treasury Office on 020 7797 8250.

We would like to ask pupils about their research training needs.

In the past we have run sessions for pupils that cover the basics of legal research as well as some more advanced topics. This ground is now also covered in the Qualifying Sessions we offer to BPTC students in the autumn and spring.

In order to avoid simply duplicating training sessions for different audiences, we would like to hear from pupils about the research topics they would like to see covered in any training aimed at them.

Comments may be sent to tdennis@innertemple.org.uk.

We cannot promise to cover everything, but we want to make sure that what we do offer is helpful to pupils.

The Library’s Annual Review of activities for 2018 is now available.

In December 2018 the Governing Benchers of the Inn voted for Project Pegasus to go ahead.

The project allows for the creation of a third and fourth floor in the Treasury Building to house an education centre, with training rooms, an auditorium and offices. The scheme preserves seven of the existing rooms (Rooms A-G) on the main floor of the Library but not the Library Gallery (which will become part of the new third floor) or Rooms H (Textbooks) and J (Legislation). A book storage room in the basement will be provided to house a proportion of the material displaced from the Gallery. Some of the remaining books will be rehoused in the basement of the Littleton Building (3 King’s Bench Walk North).

At a meeting on 18 December the City of London’s Planning and Transportation Committee reviewed and rejected the Inn’s planning application for temporary structures to accommodate a temporary Hall, Treasury Building, Library and Catering offices during the implementation of the project.

Alternative premises to house a temporary Library outside the Inn for the duration of the project have been sought and negotiations are now under way to rent space in a building very close to the Inn’s estate.

The Commonwealth collection, current textbooks, journals and law reports as well as access to the subscription databases will be available in the temporary library, which will have about 30 reader places. Library staff will retrieve books from the Littleton Basement in response to users’ requests, as they do now. Other services provided by the Library such as enquiries, document supply, legal research training and web services, will be unaffected.

The Treasury Building and Library will close at Easter to allow time for the building to be cleared by mid-May, with work on the project starting soon afterwards. It is expected that the project will take approximately twenty-two months to complete.

More information on the temporary Library will be posted on the website as it becomes available.

A list of New Titles and New Editions received by the Library between October and December 2018 has just been published.

Inns of Courts Members can use the Law Society Library on Friday 4 January 2019. Please email the Library first and if possible let them know which resource(s) you wish to refer to.