At an early point in my career as a librarian, I became exasperated with colleagues who loved teaching legal citation, and I proposed holding a ceremonial burning of some copies of the Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation at the end of that year of law school. I still believe that our students might find it cathartic to burn their bluebooks just before graduation. Thankfully, my colleague reminded me that book burning is antithetical to the core values of librarianship, and over time I hated citations less as I began to understand them better.

This week I found myself unexpectedly . . . [more]

Last year I was interviewed by Dominique Garingan for her dissertation on algorithmic literacy, and thought I would share my thoughts that arose in relation to that conversation with you here too. She also published an article about her dissertation findings in the most recent issue of Canadian Law Library Review: “Advanced Technologies and Algorithmic Literacy: Exploring Insights from the Legal Information Profession“.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “algorithm” as “a step-by-step procedure for solving a problem or accomplishing some end“. Algorithmic literacy, in turn, is the understanding of how computer systems apply algorithms so that users . . . [more]

Most legal research is done online through a combination of open and subscription databases. Legal information is available at our fingertips through Justice Laws, LEGISinfo, CanLII, Westlaw, Lexis, ProView, SOQUIJ, [insert your preferred database here], and the list goes on. The availability of electronic resources has radically changed—and will continue to change—the way legal professionals conduct research. However, despite my enthusiasm for the improved accessibility and retrievability, I think the lack of engagement that new legal researchers have with print resources creates comprehension issues. The disconnect between a source’s print and electronic formats reduces their understanding of the process used . . . [more]

Over the past few years, the precipitous fall of Hong Kong seems to be a saga no one wants to stick around to see the ensuing episodes. Widespread censorship, crackdown on press and academic freedom, and backlash on dissenting voices are enforcing a total takeover of Beijing over the city. Xi Jinping is making clear that the special administrative region will not escape his dictatorial and authoritarian vision of government and the world. Nowhere is this repression more acute than in the Hong Kong universities that were pivotal in giving the city its internationally renowned intellectual and academic . . . [more]

2021 was a better year than 2020, but has ended badly with soaring virus outbreaks. Our U.S. Congress still has a lot of leftover legislative work carrying over into 2022. But the federal information worker bees have continued to add more content and finding aids to their many online resources.

On December 20^th the Law Library of Congress posted A Trove of Information: The Congress.gov Coverage Page and then on December 21^st their 2021 Congress.gov Top 10 and Year in Review. Next on December 27^th they posted their list of The Most Viewed In Custodia Legis . . . [more]

While access to legal journals in printed form is still desired, many have transitioned to a purely digital format. But what exactly does moving from print to digital entail? To better understand this process, I asked Susan Barker, retired law librarian from the University of Toronto and current acting editor of the Canadian Law Library Review (CLLR), about her experience when the publication took the leap to online-only in 2015.

1. What were the motivations for CLLR to go purely digital?

When I came on board as editor in 2013, the decision to go digital had been tentatively made . . . [more]

Is there one piece of legal scholarship which you read years ago that sticks with you? For me it was an article about how a person’s right to legal name changes can be hindered by clerks who may misstate the law or a person’s options. The article is called Changing Name Changing: Framing Rules and the Future of Marital Names, and it was written by Elizabeth F. Emens and published in the University of Chicago Law Review in 2007.^[1] I believe I read it around 2015, and I remember being fascinated by the concept of “desk-clerk law.” In . . . [more]

“There is nothing we can do right now. Afghanistan’s justice system [has] collapsed [right] now. If we say that Afghanistan’s justice system has collapsed since the Taliban took over, we might not be exaggerating.” said Adnan, a nickname of the person I interviewed with him, chosen for security reasons. He shared these words during our online interview in mid-November 2021. Adnan left Kabul, Afghanistan in July 2020 where he was working as a Legal Advisor with the government of Afghanistan. Through this position and previous ones, Adnan has managed to make quite an impact on law librarianship both inside and

Disclaimer: I am required to teach legal citation to keen 1Ls that are learning about snails in bottles, individuals masturbating in windows, cannibalism at sea, and cricket games. I am never surprised that they do not find legal citation particularly exciting. However, unexciting does not mean unimportant. I understand and value proper citation and appreciate the efforts that McGill Law students and faculty have put into the Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation since 1986. Please note that my comments address only the English content.

Slaw is no stranger to posts about the Canadian Guide . . . [more]

Librarians and information professionals often play a role in advocating for the open access (OA) to information. I consider myself one of those advocates and will discuss what I think that means.

My OA journey began in an academic environment with the open sharing of research and educational materials, and the enthusiastic promotion of Creative Commons (CC) licences. Later experience outside of an academic institution showed me that “open access” can be applied to all types of materials, incorporate different kinds of open licences while respecting copyright law, use intricate business models, and involve competing ideologies.

If we look back . . . [more]

The U.S. Congress may not be getting much done, but the U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) and the Law Library of Congress continue to work on making U.S. legal information more accessible. On September 15^th the GPO announced that it had “digitized the Monthly Catalog of U.S. Government Publications, a historical list of publications the Federal Government produced from 1895 to 2004, as well as other historic government publication indexes. Librarians, scholars, students, and the general public can use these indexes to find historic publications of the U.S. Government. These indexes have been digitized and published for the . . . [more]

Each semester my students must meet with me to discuss their research, and each semester I put a great deal of thought into how to arrange these meetings. I love the individual attention I can give each student in these meetings, and yet, scheduling these meetings always feels like a nightmare. Sometimes I think I have not properly explained the parameters of our scheduling system, but more often it is their lack of attention to detail that leads to my students showing up late, scheduling meetings when they are already scheduled to be in other classes, or otherwise failing to . . . [more]