The University of Notre Dame Australia Law Library was established in mid-1997 in a part of the superbly restored former J. & W. Bateman warehouse complex in Fremantle's historic west end. It was renamed the Craven Law Library in 2003 to commemorate the Foundation Dean of the Law School, Professor Greg Craven. We are physically part of the School of Law though administratively part of the University Library.
Our collection now has in excess of 40,000 physical volumes and it is still growing. We also provide electronic access to all of the major Australian primary and secondary sources of law (and some foreign sources) through our website, both on campus and off campus. This electronic collection is the equivalent of many thousands of print volumes. The University of Notre Dame Australia Law Library is already physically the largest law library in Fremantle and one of the largest in Western Australia and is fully supportive of teaching and learning in law at undergraduate level. We also have some research strengths: especially our historic primary materials and older law monographs collection.
The St. Thomas More Parish in Bateman has funded the development of two seminar rooms on the upper level of the Law Library. Each room seats 12 persons and is available for small group work or individual study. In addition we have 106 study seats in the open area of the library at tables or individual study carrels. There are also 26 open access computer workstations on the lower level of the Law Library and we are responsible for the management of the Law School’s Minter Ellison Computer Instruction Room: a small computer laboratory with 17 computer workstations situated close to the Law Library entrance.