32 Other Sources
Kate Thompson and Melanie Lovich
Depending on your assignment topic, your research may be enhanced by using non-legal sources. You may find supporting data or information in other disciplines, for example, criminology, politics, statistics or health science.
News
Newspaper articles, radio and media outlets report on and discuss the latest legal developments. Access news articles via your university library, news websites and archives, such as Google News or Papers Past.
Company and Industry Information
Use company reports and industry profiles to locate information on the legal industry, law firms and legal practice. This type of business and financial information also provides background information on clients and competitors and is generally available on company websites and via your university library’s databases.
Statistics
Statistical data can help you learn more about geographic regions and the current economic and social climate. Stats NZ provides in-depth reports based on census data. Your university library can apply for bespoke data sets on your behalf. There are many international government and non-profit organisations that collect economic, industry and population data and make it freely available online. For example, the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) and the World Bank.
Theses and Dissertations
Many law schools provide access to previously completed Honours dissertations. While you cannot completely rely on the quality of such documents, they can be an excellent source of ideas and references. Masters and PhD theses are more rigorously tested and are therefore a more reliable source of information. All universities in Aotearoa New Zealand have freely accessible institutional repositories containing theses. Many New Zealand theses and dissertations are also accessible via NZ Research.
Repositories and Open Access
Repositories[1] are good sources of freely available, open-access materials, both current and historic. These kinds of materials are mainly found online. Below is a small sample available to all:
| Papers Past | New Zealand and Pacific historic newspapers, Appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives (A to Js), books and magazines |
| SSRN | Unpublished versions of research papers across many disciplines, including the Legal Scholarship Network |
| University collections | Include theses, and academic research |
| HathiTrust | Enormous collection of scanned materials that are now out of copyright. Excellent source of legal material, including the New Zealand Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) |
| Internet Archive | A digital library providing free access to internet sites, music, software applications, audiovisual and print materials |
Archives New Zealand
Government agencies create an immense volume of records, producing data, documents, correspondence and so forth. Once these records are assessed and it is determined that they have long-term value, they are transferred to Archives New Zealand and archived.
Archives date from about 1840 to the recent past. They come in a wide range of formats, including written documents, photographs, moving images and sound.
Types of records you can find include:
- Coroners’ inquests into deaths;
- Land registrations;
- Police and prison records;
- Court records, including divorce and bankruptcy files and probated wills;
- Politicians’ papers;
- Maps and plans for public works.
Although the Archives New Zealand collections are large, only a small percentage of records created by the New Zealand government is held there. Most records have not been kept as they were not believed to be valuable or were lost or damaged by disaster or through human error.
Records can be viewed in person from the four main centres – Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin – or online. Many records have been digitised and can be accessed online. Archives New Zealand is a very useful source for locating original documents beyond law. It is available to all members of the public.
Parliamentary Library
The Parliamentary Library is attached to the Parliament buildings in Wellington. It is a working library that provides research services for Members of Parliament and parliamentary staff. The library also responds to requests from the public for information on any aspect of Parliament.
The Parliamentary Library publishes the Monthly Economic Review and research papers on a wide range of topics.
Much of the more recent information is available online via the Parliament website; however, older material may be harder to obtain, so you may need to contact the Library and potentially prepare a visit in person to Wellington.
- “Open-access repository” in Wikipedia (eBook ed, Wikimedia Foundation, 2025) <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Open-access_repository&oldid=1279658998>. ↵
