It was established in 1825, as the first Official Public Library in the Province of São Paulo, and was incorporated into the São Paulo Law Academy, when it was created, in 1827. Since then, the Library has maintained its vocation as a public library, as it serves everyone who can use it for consultation, research or as a place to study, regardless of his link with the University.
The Library has a collection of approximately 500 thousand items, which is among the five largest ones in the USP. Its collection of rare and specialized works is the largest one of the university, with approximately 6500 items that encompass a wide range of works from the 16th to the 18th century and many works from the 19th century.
The Library and Documentation Service (SBD) aims to support the teaching, research and extension activities of the Law School of USP, developing a service of assistance to users, students, teachers, employees and the community in general. The SBD is presented with the following subdivisions: User service (SAU), Automation, Acquisition and Periodicals Service (SAAP), Indexing Service, Teacher Production and Publications (SIPP) and Technical Process Service (SPT).
The two main databases used in the FEDUSP are the Dedalus (books, theses, collections of periodicals and teaching staff production) and the Iusdata (articles of periodicals of doctrine, national and foreign ones), which constitute the basic sources of research for the legal area and allow the researchers to carry out bibliographic research “in loco” or remotely.
In addition to the vast and diversified printed collection available for research, there is also the collection of periodicals and electronic books aimed at the legal area, available in the HeinOnline and Legal Scholarship Network (LSN) databases, as well as multi-disciplinary databases, such as the Muse and the JStor, where it is possible to locate legal texts. It also has an Integrated Search Portal, which allows access to electronic documents available in several open access databases, such as the Directory of Open Access Repositories, SciElo, among others.
Users also have access to databases and electronic resources from other areas of knowledge, as provided by SIBi/USP, and also to other databases that are available on the Portal Periodicals Capes, (Capes Periodical Portal) as well as on the Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (BDTD) maintained by Ibict. There is also the Portal BDTD – Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations of the USP, in which works of master’s and doctorate are made available, in a partial or integral way, as provided for by the Resolution CoPGr 7569, dated October 3, 2018, which regulates the maintenance of dissertations and theses, provided for in § 3o. of the article 83 of the Post-Graduation Regulation (Resolution no. 7493, dated March 27, 2018).
Besides providing ample access to information for its users, the Library maintains an informational training program, through which it offers courses and training on research methodologies in the various databases and bibliographic guidelines for those who are going to do research and present Graduation and Post-Graduation academic works.
In order to meet all these demands, especially the assistance for both the students and the teaching staff of the Law School and other users, the Library has 34 computers with internet access, among other equipment. From this total, 10 computers are installed in the various rooms of the Library, for research.
The technical team of the Library is currently composed of 26 employees who work in the daytime and night–time periods, in the activities of cataloguing the collection, as well as in assisting users in the different spaces.
The Library has currently 7 (seven) different spaces of assistance to the users, which are distributed between the Historic Building and the Annex IV, on Senador Feijó Street. Its opening hours total 70 hours a week.
It has been proposed by the Director of the Law School, Prof. Floriano Peixoto de Azevedo Marques Neto, a budget for the construction of a new building to bring together and keep, in suitable conditions, part of the Library’s historical collection.
It is expected that the collection, being brought together in a suitable and modern environment, will further stimulate students’ attendance and academic research, in addition to optimizing human and material resources, thereby increasing the satisfaction of our users.
