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Tarlton Collection: Law in Pop Culture
The wonderful Tarlton Law Library at the University of Texas in Austin is developing a collection dedicated to the portrayal of law in popular culture, the goal of which “is to provide as broad a picture as possible of the image of the lawyer in the United States and British Commonwealth.” There is material from print, TV and movies, with only cartoons missing — an important aspect, I should have thought, but one that may be difficult because of copyright.
The collection circulates to those with a Tarlton library card, of course, but for the rest of us there are materials available online, starting with a bibiliography and including a searchable collection of e-texts. As well, for the truly determined, there’s inter-library loan.
Slaw readers may also be interested to learn that the Osgoode Hall Law School Library has a similar although more modest collection of legal fiction and DVDs. This was initiated through a generous donation of legal fiction by Osgoode professor Craig Scott and named the Barbara C. Scott Fiction Collection in honour of his mother. The library has since expanded the collection to include popular legal DVDs and looked to Tarlton’s ‘law in popular culture’ collection for inspiration. Alas, circulation of the collection is only available to the Osgoode Hall Law School community.