This summer our law library intern (shout out to Bailey Kaye!) is reviewing our archival casebook collection for a digitization project. Among them was a casebook for exchange students arriving at Dalhousie Law School in 1978. It outlined an introduction to the common law, as provided by the Sir James Dunn Law Library. In this casebook, the Sir James Dunn Law Library included a helpful list of general information about library etiquette. Let’s review how you were to conduct yourself in the law library of 1978, shall we?
The one rule that has survived nearly word-for-word, across nearly fifty years is: Food and drink – prohibited in all parts of the library. Today, food is still prohibited but we do allow students to maintain adequate hydration levels (but only if their beverage is in a water bottle or a covered, reusable travel mugs—no takeaway paper cups!). This rule has outlasted disco, dial-up internet, and at least one building fire, but it has been blatantly ignored by many hungry students with a granola bar… or even the occasional 12” subway sub or takeout pizza, whose remnants have been found littered throughout the stacks.
Noise management has evolved from a request for consideration of your peers into something closer to a zoning ordinance. In 1978, if you needed to talk, you took it to the Current Periodicals room or the discussion room. Today we have an entire hierarchy of hush, increasing in intensity as floor number ascends. I have taken to describing the floors to new students as “sure”, “shhh,” and “shut up”. This rule is taken very seriously. Though I’ve actually never shushed a student in the library, I have been shushed by a student myself while explaining print research methods on the (shhh) second floor.
Photocopying is where charming, analog nostalgia appears. Coin-operated photocopiers were available on the fourth floor with change available at the circulation desk. The imagery feels positively tactile and more reliable than our current printing system, which involves student accounts, login credentials, topping up funds, and a printer network that often seems to hold personal grudges.
Security is now done via RFIDs and aggressive beeps, whereas in 1978 students were expected to offer up their personal items to be searched on demand. My favourite part is that it was assumed every student carried a briefcase and that students were lining their personal bookshelves with hard copies of primary law pilfered from the library. In 2026 we have replaced the briefcase with a bookbag and the print reporter or volume of statutes with a database, so the idea of physically smuggling a copy of the Statutes of Canada feels almost endearing. Nobody is stealing a statute today. They are accessed from three different research platforms or a legislative website, available in html, xml, or pdf download. Take your pick.
Jumping back to the fourth floor, while students were unrolling dimes to use the photocopier, they could light up a cigarette! These days, lighting a cigarette inside a building full of old paper is the kind of decision that only makes sense if you’re running an insurance scam. The Sir James Dunn Law Library did, in fact, catch fire in 1985, with the official cause recorded as a lightning strike. I make no accusations, I simply note that the timeline is interesting (kidding).
Finally, if you left your briefcase full of loose change, cigarettes, and stolen case reporters in a study carrel, library staff would assume possession. If you wanted to locate your lost items you could check with the circulation desk but, again, be ready to be searched for a stolen copy of the Supreme Court Reports! Spaces are still cleared each morning if belongings are left behind, though now, instead of confiscating briefcases, we have a bin full of laptop chargers and some hats.
Reflecting on the law library of 1978, it seems striking that although the technologies have changed, the underlying spirit is to respect the space and to respect each other. Oh, and please, please, do not eat in the library!
