New Oxford Collections

As of this term, the Law Library provides the access to two newly purchased Oxford collections:

  • Oxford Handbooks for Law Online brings together the world’s leading scholars to write review essays that evaluate the current thinking on a field or topic, and make an original argument about the future direction of the debate. The Oxford Handbooks are one of the most successful and cited series within scholarly publishing, containing in-depth, high-level articles by scholars at the top of their field.
  •  Oxford Historical Treaties  (OHT) is the premier resource for historical treaty research and home to the full text of The Consolidated Treaty Series, the only comprehensive collection of treaties of all nations concluded from 1648 through 1919. Available via the Oxford Public International Law platform, OHT is cross-searchable with Oxford’s leading public international law resources and benefits from a modern, intuitive interface and sophisticated functionality

New Databases

As of this January, the Law Library provides the access to four newly purchased HeinOnline collections:

Canadian and Australian Acts of the Parliament & Revised Statutes of Canada (PDFs)

With HeinOnline’s Canadian Acts of the Parliament digital collection, you can now access all historical and current Acts of the Parliaments of Canada in online fully-searchable PDF format. The collection includes Acts of the Parliament of Canada (SC) 1792-2012 (annual statutes), as well as all the Revised Statutes of Canada (RSC), from the first revision in 1896 to the last in 1985. Our subscription also includes Acts of the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, 1901-2012. We feel that the law journals’ editors will particularly welcome the acquisition of this collection.

 Israel Law Reports

This collection includes the complete run of the Israel Law Reports which provides access to more than 220 cases. Cumulative tables are provided for reference to other volumes in the collection, as well as to select cases for specified time periods. Also, a “Table of Cases Published in English Translation” lists in alphabetical order all cases that have been translated into English and appear in the Selected Judgments of the Supreme Court of Israel Series and in the present Israel Law Reports Series. The collection also includes access to the Israel Law Review, Volumes 1-42 (1966-2009).

Scottish Legal History: Featuring Publications of the Stair Society

This collection includes the Stair Society Main (Annual) Series consisting of 53 volumes (1936-present), vols. 1-3 of the Stair Society Supplementary Series, as well as books, abridgments and links to scholarly articles from HeinOnline’s Law Journal Library that discuss Scots law. Founded in 1934, the Stair Society serves to encourage the study and advance the knowledge of the history of Scots Law by the publication of original documents and by the reprinting and editing of works of sufficient rarity or importance. It is named after Scotland’s greatest jurist, James Dalrymple, 1st Viscount Stair, whose Institutions of the Law of Scotland, first published in 1681, were the foundation of modern Scots law. As part of its aim to further the study of Scots legal history, the Society produces printed and electronic publications, specifically an annual volume along with occasional other publications, which are now available via HeinOnline to the users of the Gelber Library.

History of International Law

This collections includes more than 1,100 titles and 800,000 pages dating back to 1690 on International Law subjects such as War & Peace, the Nuremberg Trials, Law of the Sea, International Arbitration, Hague Conferences and Conventions and inks to scholarly articles from HeinOnline’s Law Journal Library that discuss International Law.

You can access the new collections via the main HeinOnline page.

New Databases: World Treaties Library & UN Law Collection

Since last Tuesday, the Law Library provides the access to two newly released HeinOnline collections: World Treaties Library and UN Law Collection.

World Treaties Library collection brings together works from Oceana’s Consolidated Treaty Series, U.S. Treaty Index, Rohn’s World Treaty Index, Dumont, Wiktor, Martens, the League of Nations, and the United Nations Treaty Series, creating the richest collection of world treaties ever available, covering the time period from 1648 to the present that includes more than 160,000 treaty records. Also included are hundreds of treaty related publications, a bibliography of select titles of importance to world treaty research, and hundreds of the best, and most-cited law review articles related to treaty research.

UN Law Collection:  vast collection of full text documents that includes United Nations Treaty Series (UNTS), and the League of Nations Treaty Series, publications from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), United Nations Commission of International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), United Nations Yearbooks, United Nations Serials, law review articles that cite a specific UN Treaty, and more.

You can access the new collections via the main HeinOnline page.

Legal Databases Training for Law Students

The Nahum Gelber Law Library is pleased to be able to offer again  the database training by legal publishers to McGill Law students. The sessions will take place in the Law Library Computer Classroom (main floor of the library).

  • QuickLaw (LexiNexis)
    Monday, October 27, 13-14:30h
  • Westlaw Canada (Carswell)
    Wednesday, October 29, 13-14:30h
  • Azimut (SOQUIJ)
    Monday, November 3, 13-14:30h
  • CAIJ (Centre d’accès à l’information juridique)
    Wednesday, November 5, 13-14:30h

Sign-up sheets are available in the Law Library Computer Classroom.

Book about the McGill Law Journal: The Journal: 60 Years of People, Prose, and Publication

So many people have published and edited with the McGill Law Journal that the Journal’s institutional memory could fill a book. This was the insight of the Managing Editor of volume 54, Eytan Bensoussan, who came up with the idea of writing a book about the history and legacy of the Journal. James Cummins, a journalist and writer from Ottawa, was commissioned to write the book by the Editor-in-Chief of volume 56. The result is an account of the singular nature of the McGill Law Journal, recounting the ways it was influenced by and has influenced the Canadian legal and political landscape.9781926716251_cover_coverbookpage-v2-modal

The McGill Law Journal is the premiere legal periodical in the history of Canadian scholarship. Since its founding in 1952 by Jacques-Yvan Morin (future leader of the Official Opposition in the National Assembly of Quebec) the Journal has been at the forefront of legal history. It was the first university-based law journal in Canada to be cited by the Supreme Court, and has since been outpaced by no other university journal in the frequency at which the Court has turned to it. And it has always has been run solely by students.

The Journal’s alumni covers a who’s who of the last 60 years in Canada, from international figures to business leaders; from national politicians to larger-than-life legal scholars; from judges to global entertainers. This is the story of the people who made the Journal work; of the people who each made their first real impacts on the world through an unearthly dedication and passion to their job at the MLJ. It is also the tale of the revolutionary ideas that flowed into, and in some situations started, in the pages of the publication they ran.

The book is based on interviews with the Journal’s alumni, a history of legal journals in Canada, and the content of each of the 58 volumes that came to be between 1952 and the end of the 60th anniversary year of the Journal in the spring of 2013. The culmination of this research provides a breathtaking picture of a history that was beginning to slowly fade into the past, strengthening the identity of a key part of Canadian society.

The journal: 60 Years of People, Prose, and Publication is now available at the Nahum Gelber Law Library: KEQ322 M34 2013.

Sources: http://lawjournal.mcgill.ca/en/text/2998, http://49thshelf.com/Books/T/The-McGill-Law-Journal-60-Years-of-People-Prose-and-Publication

Electronic McGill Cite Guide, Westlaw Next, and new La Reference

Since this week, we have access to the new platforms with improved user interfaces for the Westlaw Next Canada and La Reference (former DCL/ REJB).

One of the most important new features of the Westlaw Canada Next is the access to an electronic version of the Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation (8th edition).

All the links in the Law Subject guide and on the Law Library branch page have been updated to lead to the new platforms.

Quelques sources de l’histoire de droit

Bibliographie d’histoire du droit en langue française, la banque de données bibliographique, est proposée par le Centre lorrain d’histoire du droit (C.L.H.D.) de l’Université de Nancy 2.

Portail numérique d’histoire du droit se propose de rassembler et de mettre à la disposition des chercheurs et enseignants en Histoire du droit toutes les informations pratiques, liens utiles et ressources électroniques diverses destinés à faciliter leur travail de recherche et d’enseignement, et d’assurer, autant que possible, la publicité des événements qui s’inscrivent dans le cadre de cette discipline.

Jus Politicum est une revue et une encyclopédie électronique consacrée au droit politique. Ce site se propose d’être un lieu de dialogue entre juristes, philosophes, historiens et politistes, ainsi qu’un point de rencontre entre cultures nationales, comme en témoignent la diversité de ses organes éditoriaux, ainsi que ses trois langues de travail de la revue (français, anglais et allemand).

Clio@Thémis, la revue fondée à l’initiative de plusieurs chercheurs au Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), associant des enseignants-chercheurs des Universités, souhaite contribuer au développement des débats et échanges scientifiques sur l’histoire du droit. Nomôdos est le blog d’actualités de Clio@Thémis, e-revue d’histoire du droit. 

Le portail Fontes Historiae Iuris contient les inventaires et analyses d’archives des cours de justice françaises et européennes d’Ancien Régime et les ouvrages numérisés en histoire du droit et de la justice. Les ouvrages sont classés selon la typologie des sources du droit (Législation, Doctrine, Coutumiers, Recueils d’arrêts, Dictionnaires, Encyclopédies et Lexicographies).

Essentiels du droit français donnent accès à une sélection de titres fondamentaux numérisés à partir des collections patrimoniales de la BnF et consultables dans Gallica. Le corpus est structuré par type de sources du droit correspondant aux axes de la politique documentaire de numérisation en sciences juridiques de la BnF : sources constitutionnelles, sources législatives et réglementaires, jurisprudence, doctrine, sources du droit coutumier et du droit local.

Gallica est la bibliothèque numérique de la Bibliothèque nationale de France. En libre accès, elle regroupe des livres numérisés, des cartulaires, des revues, des photos et une collection d’enluminures.

HathiTrust is a partnership of academic & research institutions, offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world.

Dictionnaires de droit privé en ligne

Depuis les années 1980, le Centre Paul-André Crépeau de droit privé et comparé a publié les dictionnaires de la terminologie du droit privé québécois issues du projet de recherche Dictionnaires de droit privé et lexiques bilingues. A présent, le Centre offre sur le site web trois dictionnaires en accès gratuit : le Dictionnaire de droit privé (2ème éd.), le Dictionnaire de droit privé des obligations ainsi que Le dictionnaire de droit privé de la famille, dans leurs versions française et anglaise. Dans les projets du Centre est de rajouté au site Le Dictionnaire de droit privé – Les Biens quiest paru en format papier en 2012 et la deuxième édition du Dictionnaire de droit privé de la famille qui paraitra bientôt.

Ces dictionnaires sont des outils de référence uniques  et essentiels pour l’ensemble des juristes québécois, pour les traducteurs juridiques, et pour les juristes travaillant en droit comparé. En exprimant le droit privé dans les langues anglaise et française, les Dictionnaires de droit privé / Private Law Dictionaries sont des outils de connaissance originaux qui tiennent compte du fait que le droit privé québécois évolue dans un cadre linguistique et juridique unique au monde. Ils constituent les seuls ouvrages de terminologie juridique pouvant prétendre refléter la spécificité bilingue et bijuridique de la culture juridique québécoise.

Changes in Access to Electronic Resources

The McGill Library is making important changes in the access to electronic resources.

On Wednesday, June 4, 2014, the electronic resources (e-books, e-journals, databases, open access resources) will be removed from the Classic Catalogue.

  • The Classic Catalogue will continue to contain all the items in our local collections, including print books and journals, DVDs, microform, etc.
  • E-resources will be removed from the following sub-catalogues: full, audio-visual and journal titles
  • The McGill Theses sub-catalogue will not be affected by this change, and will still contain both print and electronic materials.
  • eExams will not be affected by this change, and will continue to be available as they were before.
  • Course Reserves will still display e-resources on reserve for McGill courses.
  • You can continue to access all our e-resources through WorldCat.

On Monday, June 9, 2014 the eResearch Gateway will be taken off-line.

  • The eResearch Gateway was an alternate way of searching for articles, databases, and other electronic resources. This functionality is now provided for the most part by WorldCat and the Library’s subject guides.
  • The Law Subject guide includes all the legal databases to which the McGill Library is currently subscribing.
  • If you have used saved articles using the My Research feature, you’ll need to export those article references before June 9. You can find more information about how to export the articles here.

In June, our link old resolver (“Find It”) will be migrated to OCLC’s WorldCat Link Resolver service.

  • For the most part, the change in link resolver will happen automatically and will not require any intervention on your part.
  • If you use Google Scholar to search for articles, you will need to configure it to use the new WorldCat Link Resolver to access articles that are available through the Library. You can find the information about configuring the Google Scholar here.

If you have any questions regarding upcoming changes, please do not hesitate to contact any of the liaison librarians for Law.

NEW Database: Investor-State LawGuide Database

As of this month, the Nahum Gelber Law Library is subscribed to the Investor-State LawGuide Database. ISLG’s technology links you to the specific passages in arbitral decisions and awards where a tribunal discusses a particular legal instrument or prior arbitral decision. The database includes such features as Subject Navigator, Article Citator, Jurisprudence Citator, Terms & Phrases and Full-text search. All materials relevant to publicly available ICSID, NAFTA and ad hoc tribunal decisions are available in ISLG’s comprehensive document directory. These materials can be filtered in a variety of ways to enable you to obtain the research results you need.

To access the database, go: Law subject guide / Foreign legislation and cases / Arbitration.