À la découverte: La bibliothèque du Code civil de la province de Québec

Par: George Yeryomin, étudiant à la Faculté de droit de l’Université McGill, assistant de référence à la Bibliothèque Gelber

Le droit civil en tant que tradition juridique s’étend sur plus de deux millénaires et demie d’histoire depuis la fondation de Rome, et ses principes et sa doctrine se trouvent contenus dans un grand nombre de lois et écrits monumentaux : les lois royales, la Loi des XII Tables, la codification monumentale de l’empereur Justinien, dont est issu le jus commune européen, élaboré et enrichi continuellement par tant d’œuvres et commentaires de jurisconsultes illustres, qui a subsisté pendant des siècles en tant que système de droit vivant jusqu’aux codifications nationales récentes (au XIXè siècle). La multitude des écrits formant la tradition et la doctrine civiliste est donc énormément riche et nombreuse. Mais cela veut-il dire que ces ressources doctrinales ne sont qu’accessibles à un nombre très limité de chercheurs? Bien au contraire, il y a une façon assez simple d’avoir accès aux extraits les plus pertinents de anciens docteurs et jurisconsultes qui ont servi de sources pour les compilateurs du Code civil, dont la lecture peut être d’une grande utilité pour comprendre le raisonnement derrière les règles expliquées de façon assez succincte par les codificateurs. Car il faut se le rappeler, le droit civil n’est pas issu du code, mais plutôt le code est l’expression synthétisée du droit civil.

La méthode que l’on vous propose comporte deux étapes, et aura pour but de vous faire découvrir une œuvre monumentale de la doctrine civiliste québécoise du XIXè siècle, La bibliothèque du Code civil de la province de Québec par Charles-Chamilly de Lorimier et Charles-Albert Vilbon1.

Première étape : trouver la concordance entre le CcQ et le CcBC
Une des façons de le faire est sur le site du CAIJ : https://elois.caij.qc.ca/CCQ-1991

Entrez l’article à propos duquel vous faites la recherche. La page consacrée à cet article vous indique l’équivalence dans le Code civil du Bas-Canada, s’il y en a une.

Dans l’exemple ci-dessous, nous cherchons les sources de l’art 1401 CcQ :

Une autre façon de trouver l’équivalence est d’aller voir l’édition Wilson-Lafleur du CcQ. En bas du texte de chaque article, l’article équivalent au CcBC est donné, s’il y en a un. Sinon, il y a aussi une table de concordance qui offre la concordance pour chaque article du CcQ.

Voici la même démarche à propos de l’art 1401 CcQ dans l’édition Wilson & Lafleur :

Veuillez noter que l’édition Yvon Blais n’offre pas la concordance en dessous du texte de chaque article du CcQ, et la table de concordance à la fin est classifiée selon l’ordre des articles du CcBC, ce qui rend la recherche un peu plus compliquée si notre point de départ est le CcQ.

Deuxième étape : trouvez l’article du CcBC dans La bibliothèque du Code civil
L’ouvrage auquel l’on fait référence est La bibliothèque du Code civil de la province de Québec par Charles-Chamilly de Lorimier et Charles-Albert Vilbon, qui est accessible dans son entièreté sur le site de la bibliothèque de McGill: https://www.library.mcgill.ca/hostedjournals/civilcode.html

Non, La bibliothèque du Code civil n’est pas une bibliothèque au sens propre, mais un ouvrage s’étendant sur plusieurs volumes contenant les autorités et les sources utilisées par les codificateurs pour chaque article du CcBC, allant des lois romaines en passant par les grands jurisconsultes français comme Du Moulin, Pothier, et plusieurs autres, terminant par les nouveaux codes, celui de Napoléon et celui de la Louisiane. Ainsi, cet ouvrage est une mine d’or servant de lien entre la tradition civiliste millénaire et le droit civil contemporain.

Pour vous faciliter la recherche à travers La bibliothèque du Code civil, voici une liste de tous les articles du CcBC contenus dans chacun des volumes de La bibliothèque :
• Vol 1 : 1–122
• Vol 2 : 123–307
• Vol 3 : 308–466
• Vol 4 : 467–565 (début)
• Vol 5 : 565 (suite)–718
• Vol 6 : 719–857
• Vol 7 : 858–1026
• Vol 8 : 1027–1149
• Vol 9 : 1150–1265
• Vol 10 : 1266–1384
• Vol 11 : 1385–1501
• Vol 12 : 1502–1603
• Vol 13 : 1604–1714
• Vol 14 : 1715–1809
• Vol 15 : 1810–1897
• Vol 16 : 1898–1975
• Vol 17 : 1976–2078
• Vol 18 : 2079–2196 (début)
• Vol 19 : 2196 (suite)–2233
• Vol 20 : 2234–2266
• Vol 21 : 2267–2277

Dans l’exemple ci-dessous, nous essayons de trouver les sources de l’art 993 CcCB (l’équivalent de l’art 1401 CcQ) dans La bibliothèque. Grâce à la liste ci-haut, on voit que cet article se trouve analysé au volume 7.

Les deux premières pages à partir d’où l’art 993 CcBC est abordé nous offrent un extrait du Digeste de Justinien (le signe « ff » signifie Digeste) et un extrait de Pothier. Dans les pages suivantes, on peut lire d’autres extraits tirés de Domat et un article du Code Napoléon.

Des questions ? N’hésitez pas à nous contacter : law.library@mcgill.ca.

1Charles-Chamilly de Lorimier et Charles-Albert Vilbon, La bibliothèque du Code civil de la province de Quebec (ci-devant Bas-Canada) : ou recueil comprenant entre autres matières, Montréal : Cadieux & Dérome, 1871-90.

Access to Jus Mundi database, thanks to the Wainwright Fund

Thanks to the generosity of the Wainwright Fund, the library is pleased to announce yet another new database subscription, this time to Jus Mundi – Academic Research, by Brill.

Subscribing to this new and innovative award-winning database was a priority for the library, as it caters directly to two of the Faculty of Law’s research strengths: Arbitration and International Law. Jus Mundi contains “over 16,000 international law and investor-state arbitration documents, including treaties, ICJ, PCIJ, PCA, ITLOS, ICSID and other arbitration institutions, UNCITRAL, IUSCT documents (judgments, arbitral awards, orders, pleadings, etc.), and decisions of the Mixed Claims Commission.” Importantly for our bilingual Faculty, the database offers a multilingual search engine, with several advanced linguistic features.

Jus Mundi is accessible from the Arbitration section of our International Law subject guide, here. Law Faculty and students wishing to book an appointment with a law librarian to receive training on this new database should email reference.law@mcgill.ca.

Accès à la Bibliothèque numérique Dalloz, grâce au Fonds Wainwright

La bibliothèque tient à remercier le Fonds Wainwright pour sa contribution à l’achat de deux accès simultanés à la Bibliothèque numérique Dalloz.

Given the importance of Civil Law research at McGill’s Faculty of Law, we determined that had to make more digital legal materials from France available to our users. This was particularly pressing given the impact of the global pandemic on access to our physical print collections. Access to these digital materials therefore comes at a critical time for our community.

La Bibliothèque numérique Dalloz donne accès à 1 500 ouvrages, incluant les Codes Dalloz, Dalloz action, Lexiques, Précis Dalloz, les manuels universitaires, les ouvrages de révision, et bien plus, en version feuilletable. Cet accès est disponible depuis le 1er janvier 2021.

To access the Bibliothèque numérique Dalloz, please visit the Dalloz database from our French Law subject guide, here. Then, scroll down on the landing page and select either Ouvrages or, under “À feuilleter,” Dalloz Bibliothèque.

Looking back on 38 years of service: an interview with Anne Avery

After 38 years working in the McGill Library system, our colleague Anne Avery will be retiring at the end of the year. Anne came to the Gelber as a library assistant in October 2006 from the McLennan Library, and has been a pillar of our library ever since. Members of the McGill Law community will remember Anne as a friendly face at our circulation desk, always ready to help out, whether it be to check out a book on reserve or pick up a hold, navigate our catalogues, guide patrons around the library, solve a uPrint problem, or figure out how to work the microfilm reader, though of course Anne’s duties and impact on users extends far beyond circulation.

Before leaving, Anne was kind enough to sit down for a brief interview to talk about her experience working at McGill, and to share some fond memories about her time here. The following are summaries of Anne’s answers.

Career trajectory within the McGill Library system
Anne was first hired as a casual library employee in October 1981, working on the 6th floor of the McLennan Library, filing acquisition records. At the time, acquisition slips were printing in multiple copies. We’re not talking duplicate or triplicate here… more like upwards of 6 copies per acquisition! This was a one-month contract, after which Anne was hired to type updated subject headings on catalogue cards following Library of Congress Subject Headings. This required a “special typewriter with very small keys” (since you couldn’t adjust font size otherwise)! This job was also out of the 6th floor of McLennan. That position was abolished in July 1982, but just over half a year later, Anne was back, this time working in acquisitions at the Medical Library. In May 1983, Anne became a permanent employee.

In September 1984, Anne moved into a public-facing position in the Library School Library, then located on the ground floor of McLennan. This was a sessional job that followed the academic calendar. Anne worked at that branch for 4 years, before taking a one-year educational leave. When she returned in September 1989, Anne moved onto the Redpath Reserves. This is when computers were first introduced on the service side of the library, and when Anne started working with them!

In September 1991, Anne headed back to the Library School Library, which she managed for 3 years. With that branch library set to close, Anne then moved to the Microfilm service, a public-facing service located on the 2nd floor of McLennan. It is there that she first worked with the Gelber’s current supervisor, Elizabeth Gibson, who supervised the Microfilm service. An extremely popular service at the time, it was open 7 days a week, and during evenings. “That department was a gem source of information and included print newspapers and current serials, of course,” notes Anne. According to Anne, this was where she met the greatest variety of people.

In October 2006, Anne finally moved to the Gelber Library. At the time, the branch was also open evenings and weekends, and was “bursting with staff,” as this was before a lot of centralization of library services. Despite the many changes to the library system that occurred since Anne’s arrival at the Gelber, Anne stayed on at the Gelber for just over 14 years.

Upon reflecting on her 7 positions in the McGill Library system, Anne remarked: “It’s great to move around and meet different people!”

At the Gelber circulation desk, circa 2007.  From L to R: Anne Avery, Lisa Barrett, Mila Bozic Erkic, and Brock Cummings
At the Gelber circulation desk, circa 2007. From L to R: Anne Avery, Lisa Barrett, Mila Bozic Erkic, and Brock Cummings

In another life, another career path?
Who would have known that Anne worked as a surgical nurse in a veterinary hospital immediately prior to arriving at McGill in 1981? A lover of animals, Anne’s allergies contributed in part to her career change.

Our world traveler
And did you know that Anne has lived in 5 countries, and 3 cities in Canada (Vancouver, Thunder Bay, and Montreal)? In 1982, when Anne’s position was terminated, Anne and her husband benefitted from the extra time to go to France for les vendages, the grape harvest, an opportunity that her husband had heard of with l’Association Québec-France: “We were assigned to the champagne region near Reims on a family vineyard for 12 memorable days. We remained 4 months, following a theme of historical locations, living cheap, traveling by train, regional bus and ship, visiting many locations in France, zig zagging south through autumn, moving on to Florence and Venice, then Greece, and celebrating Christmas in Crete and New Year’s in Rhodes.”

While Montreal has been home for the past 31 years, Anne still calls the European cities she lived in “home” when she goes back to visit. Her favourite travel destination? “They’re all my favourite when I get there!”

Fun facts about the McGill Library, 80s edition & Anne’s career trajectory
To work in the library when Anne first started, one had to first pass a typing test. Now, we won’t mention how Anne did on the test, but Anne did want to give a little shout-out to human resources for helping her overcome that little speed bump!

When Anne started working at McGill, access to the McLennan library was limited to graduate students and the employees working there, with undergraduate students studying in Redpath instead. Consequently, a guard was stationed at the bottom of the McLennan stairs to confirm IDs! There were 25 library branches at the time, compared to the 11 we currently have. While students were not permitted to smoke in the library, library staff with individual offices could smoke in them.

Checking out a book? Some of us might remember the old index cards that we used to check out books on in elementary school, but in the 80s, McGill’s system was a little more sophisticated than that! Circulation staff would instead check out books using manual sliding card machines – like the ones used for credit cards!

Prior to coming to the Gelber, Anne worked with two individuals who would later become law library directors: Michael Renshawe and Bob Clark. By the time Anne moved to the Gelber, however, they had already left. Upon arriving at the Gelber, Anne reconnected with a former student who had attended library school when Anne ran the Library School Library: the current Head of the Gelber, Daniel Boyer! A helpful tip to anyone in the library system at McGill, considering the amount of internal movement here, but also really great advice for anyone in or entering the workforce: “McGill is a community; your working life will interweave with many individuals over the years so make the most of positive contacts and create a network of supportive connections.”

Library trends over time
From card catalogues to our newest catalogue that allows us to see not only our own holdings and availability of texts at McGill, but holdings in hundreds of thousands of libraries across the world, as well as availability of texts through the Quebec university library system “technology has changed things so amazingly,” says Anne. “It’s a huge difference,” Anne notes, laughing, when I ask her what surprises her the most about how library patrons use the library now versus in the 80s.

How librarians provide services has also changed. Before the explosion of databases, reference used to “all be in the librarians’ heads,” and if anything escaped them, they would consult index cards kept on reference desks. Now, a liaison librarian’s primary duty is to know how to find things in a database, and of course, know what database to use!

Matching at the Gelber, circa 2008.
From L to R: Mary Lourenço, Mila Bozic Erkic, and Anne Avery.

Funny stories involving law faculty
I was hoping for a good Overheard for the Quid Novi, but Anne is all class ‘til the end! She notes that she enjoyed getting to know law staff and faculty alike. One fun thing that happened as a result of chatting with a law professor at the desk was that she was able to get some family papers translated from Swedish!

Some unique Gelber finds
Looking for some neat Gelber discoveries? Anne recommends checking out the PN section on the 3rd floor. A quick catalogue search tells me that there’s a nice mix of freedom of the press in there and fun texts about lawyers and literature, for instance The lawyer’s cartoon book, by Pascal Élie and Lawyers’ merriments, by David Murray.

Anne also recently went through the Rare Books collection and found a number of gems there, including a book by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, aka Lewis Carroll. She notes that the annuals in our collection are fantastic resources for “history buffs” interested in social history, thanks to the ads that precede and follow the main text.

Fondest memories working in the libraries
The chair of our social committee, Anne notes that what she’ll miss most is the camaraderie she shared with colleagues – with a special shout-out to our famous Gelber birthday parties – and socialising with patrons over the desk. Having had worked in 6 other library positions, Anne notes that it “really made a difference working in a satellite library.” Working at the Gelber, Anne had a variety of work, and also got to meet “people from all over.”

Throughout the years, Anne has been particularly impressed with the opportunities that our students have taken for study and work abroad. She pointed out in particular the students that have gone on to work with NGOs and in human rights advocacy.

Final farewell message to students
“Seize opportunities for personal enrichment… and go to all the library teaching seminars! You’ll need it!”

Photo from Library Matters, vol 3, issue 11 (November 2007)
Seated, front row from left to right: John Hobbins, Daniel Boyer, Jason Elsliger, Inge Hernandez, Veena Vohra, Brock Cummings, Carlos Rojas, John Kirkpatrick, and Kathleen Vandernoot. Standing, back row from left to right: Lisa Barrett, Mary Lourenço, Anne Avery and Louisa Piatti.

Law library services and resources during the pandemic

This blog post has been adapted from our recent From the Gelber columns in the Quid Novi.

Edit: this blog post was edited on October 26th, 2020, to include the reactivation of our article/ chapter scan service, and on November 26th, to update our study hub hours and add book return information.

While heading back to school in the middle of a pandemic certainly comes with its challenges, the library worked hard throughout the summer (and continues to work hard!) to try and make the transition to a remote environment a little easier. Here is a summary of key services and resources available to McGill Law faculty, staff, and students:

Electronic course reserves

Since we knew there would be no physical course reserves available in the library during the pandemic, we worked with professors and with legal publishers to try and ensure that the vast majority of required course readings would be available electronically for free through the library. This table summarises where you can try finding key texts through library resources:

PublisherDatabase
Carswell, Sweet & MaxwellWestlawNext, UK Legal (through OnePass)
EmondVitalsource (linked in catalogue)
Irwin LawCAIJ (DèsLibris)
LexisNexisLexis Advance Quicklaw
Wilson & LafleurCAIJ (eDoctrine)
Yvon BlaisLa référence

Additional electronic resources (SOQUIJ, CAIJ, Practical Law Canada + additional Thomson products)

Les étudiant.e.s et les membres de la Faculté de droit profitent des accès additionnels à quelques bases de données juridiques, notamment SOQUIJ, le CAIJ, et des produits Thomson Reuters, dont Practical Law Canada. Ceci dit, vous devez tout d’abord compléter un formulaire de consentement pour y avoir accès. Contactez la bibliothèque pour plus de détails.  

Library pickup service (to borrow physical library books)

Titles not available in electronic format can be borrowed via our library pickup service. Items are retrieved by our library assistants, put into paper bags and quarantined, and are then made available via a contactless pickup. Users will first need to locate the book in our catalogue, and take note of the call number. Details can be found here.

Interlibrary loan (including borrowing books checked out at McGill but available at another Quebec university)

Interlibrary loan (ILL) – the ability to borrow titles not available in McGill’s collection – is now available both for articles and physical books. Physical books will be made available via the library pickup. McGill users can put in an ILL request as usual through Colombo directly or via the ILL request link within the catalogue.  

In addition, if a user notices that the McGill copy of a physical text is currently checked out, we have no electronic version, and there is a physical copy of the same text available at another Quebec university library, the user can now make an interlibrary loan request to have the copy from another Quebec university library sent to McGill. Currently, this should be done through the regular ILL request. This is made possible through a new agreement with the other Quebec university libraries.

Article scan service

Depuis le 26 octobre 2020, notre service de repérage d’articles est de retour. Les demandes doivent se faire via le formulaire qui se trouve sur cette page. Tout document disponible en version numérique ne peut être demandé.

De plus, les étudiant.e.s qui ont activé leurs comptes CAIJ peuvent bénéficier de leur service de repérage documentaire pour les articles disponibles dans leur collection. Ce service est normalement payant (5 $ par document), mais compte tenu de la COVID, il est gratuit jusqu’à la fin mars 2021.

Study hub

Students looking for study space in the library can book a spot up to one hour in advance, via the library website. The Gelber is open Monday to Friday, from 9:00am-12:00pm and from 1:30pm-4:30pm. Note that no other library service will be available at the study hub other than access to the photocopiers/scanners/ printers and pick-ups of previously requested books.  

Book returns

Books can be returned to the book drop just inside the entrance at the Law Library Monday to Friday from 9:00am until 4:30pm. 

Books can be placed in the returns bin on the street level at the McLennan Library Building 3459 McTavish Street at any time. 

Virtual reference service

Questions? Concerns? Please contact Sonia (sonia.smith@mcgill.ca) or Katarina (katarina.daniels@mcgill.ca) directly. Simple questions can be sent by email, while conference calls can be arranged for more complex reference questions.

New Wellness Libguide

Working from home on this Wellness Wednesday, and with all the stress and news about the COVID19 virus around the world and in my own neighborhood, I decided to focus my attention on creating a new Libguide on Wellness.

This Wellness Libguide is designed to foster the development of healthy habits and lay the groundwork for students to lead a balanced and healthy lifestyle. The goal is to promote student wellness and to assist them in finding the resources they need to help cope with the stresses of law school. It points to topics relating to mental health & wellness within the legal profession.

Wellness Wednesdays have become a symbol of support for mental health awareness and advocacy, and we can do that even from our homes. Please see this new guide here.

 

Legal dictionaries through the centuries

A new exhibition is on display at the Nahum Gelber Law Library. Legal dictionaries through the centuries.

It presents items from its Wainwright and Canadiana Rare Books collections published between 1616 and 1882.

A very unique dictionary is the Vocabvlarivm ivrisprvdentiae romanae from 1718, a handwritten small book that provides a quick and simple reference guide to the principle terms and concepts of Roman civil law. Aspects covered are from inheritance and property rights through to contracts and martial law. A section also deals with “Iuris Primordia”, detailing the structure and development of the Corpus Iuris Civilis.

Another interesting work is the Dictionnaire de cas de conscience : ou, Décisions des plus considérables dificultez touchant la morale et la discipline ecclesiastique. Tirées de l’Ecriture, des Conciles, des Decretales des papes, des peres, et des plus célebres théologiens et canonistes. A three volumes set published in Paris in 1730 donated to the Library by Paul-André Crépeau.

A work dedicated to the French King and dealing with feudal Law in France is the Dictionnaire des fiefs et des droits seigneuriaux utiles et honorifiques : contenant les définitions des termes, & un ample recueil des décisions choisies, fondées sur la jurisprudence des arrêts, la disposition des différentes coutumes, & la doctrine des meilleures feudistes … by Joseph Renauldon, published in Paris, in 1788.

A recent donation to our Rare Books also presented in this exhibition is the New law-dictionary: containing the interpretation and definition of words and terms used in law… by Giles Jacob, published in London, in 1782. It was donated and restored thanks to the generosity of Penny Polk and Gordon Echenberg.

The exhibition was curated by Sonia Smith.

Focus on: LITE Newsletter

Today we rediscovered Lite Newsletter, a newsletter published between 1968-1974 by the Office of the Judge Advocate General of the United States Air Force. After it was found, we decided that it was too rare of an item to keep in our regular journal collection, and so moved it into our rare book collection to ensure preservation (McGill owns volumes from 1970-1974). The content was so unique and interesting, we thought we would share a little bit about the newsletter and its contents!

Lite Newsletter was a newsletter dedicated to sharing news about the LITE System, a computerized information retrieval system for legal research that was developed by the Air Force and which provided search service to government agencies in the United States. LITE, which stands for Legal Information Thru Electronics, seems to have been a game changer in legal research in the Department of Defense in particular, saving “countless hours of manual research”.  Run by a staff of attorneys, LITE was meant to help lawyers deal with the “information explosion” of the time. The LITE attorneys were trained in building effective queries for the LITE system to run. Based on descriptions of the search functions, it looks like LITE attorneys were essentially researchers who were particular adept at using Boolean and proximity operators (!).

LITE included many databases, including the United States Code, decisions of various boards and tribunals, published and unpublished international law agreements, and extensive regulatory material. The LITE Newsletter would keep government lawyers up to date with new additions to the databases, interesting and common LITE searches, and more. Eventually, a library was built with these searches, to save “computational time” on urgent requests that effectively repeated a previously completed search.

In one issue of the newsletter, a list of potential explanations for not using LITE were enumerated. Particularly entertaining reasons included:

2. Dreamed of the possibility of computerized research, but didn’t know that it was feasible.
9. Didn’t realize the breadth and depth of a computer-produced research report. Didn’t realize that some problems which may have been impossible to research manually can now be researched by the computer.
12. Does not trust any kind of research prepared by a machine.

Other explanations might resonate with fellow librarians today:

5. Was afraid, or at least nervous asking for information on the system.
6. Didn’t believe that LITE data bases were relevant to the user’s problems, however, didn’t bother to inquire.
7. Satisfied with manual research techniques.

One issue of the newsletter also goes into the importance of using computers for research: “The computer is the only tool of technology that can store, manipulate and retrieve data of any kind in many different and general ways […] It is the most powerful tool ever available to man and to society.”

It is interesting to note how far we have come with computer-assisted research, and yet sometimes, our struggles remain the same. “Information explosion” is now known as “information overload,” and is one of the most significant challenges of the Digital Age. People may now be comfortable with researching using traditional databases, but when artificial intelligence is thrown into the mix – for instance, with new document analyzers – there is increasing skepticism. Finally, students continue to struggle with library anxiety, and librarians continue to put significant efforts into library outreach.

The LITE Newsletter is available by consultation only, Mondays to Fridays, from 9am-5pm.

  • Lite service for government agencies

Two new databases and a new agreement with the CAIJ

The Nahum Gelber Law Library is proud to announce the launch of two new databases, Practical Law Canada and Lexis Practice Advisor, as well as the signing of an agreement between the CAIJ and McGill University, granting CAIJ memberships to students, librarians, support staff and professors of the McGill Faculty of Law.

Access to Practical Law Canada and membership to the CAIJ are restricted to the Faculty of Law only; a consent form, available at the circulation desk or by emailing law.library@mcgill.ca, must first be completed. Access to Lexis Practice Advisor is available to the entire McGill community.

Practical Law Canada

Practical Law Canada (PLC) is a research tool that provides a variety of practical resources to help lawyers get their work done more efficiently. Practice notes, which provide guidelines and explanations of current law and practice, precedents with detailed drafting notes, and checklists, timelines and flowcharts, are created and maintained by a team of expert lawyers, who ensure that their material reflects current practice. The practice areas covered are:

– Capital Markets & Securities
– Commercial Real Estate
– Commercial Transactions
– Competition
– Corporate and M&A
– Employment
– Finance
– Litigation (Corporate & Commercial)

In addition, PLC offers a provincial comparison tool, allowing users to compare laws and requirements in a particular area of law, across the country. Last, their product What’s Market allows you to easily analyse and compare terms or features across publicly filed deals.

Guides, video tutorials (in both languages) and interactive eLearning (English Only) are available here:  https://store1.thomsonreuters.ca/learning/practical-law-canada (Eng)  https://store1.thomsonreuters.ca/apprentissage/practical-law-canada (Fr). A training session in the library will be offered during the course of the semester.

Lexis Practice Advisor

Lexis Practice Advisor is another practitioner-oriented research tool. Similar to PLC, the platform also features practice notes, precedents with detailed drafting notes, checklists and flowcharts, as well as forms and articles, all maintained by a team of expert lawyers. The practice areas covered are:

– Capital Markets and M&A
– Commercial
– Corporate and Private M&A
– Employment
– Family Law (BC and Ontario only)
– Finance
– Insolvency & Restructuring
– In-House Counsel
– Intellectual Property & Technology
– Litigation & Dispute Resolution
– Personal Injury (BC and Ontario only)
– Wills, Trusts & Estates (BC and Ontario only)

While the content is primarily Canadian, some international, US, UK, and EU content is also available.

Training on Lexis Practice Advisor will be offered during the course of the semester.

CAIJ

Le CAIJ met à votre disposition des ressources couvrant l’ensemble des champs de la pratique juridique. Vous retrouverez notamment du contenu et des outils afin d’appuyer vos études et recherches, notamment :

– Jurisprudence québécoise et canadienne.
– Lois des juridictions canadiennes.
– De la doctrine à valeur ajoutée et développée au CAIJ, telle que :

*une banque de question de recherche documentées (TOPO) comprenant plus de 5000 questions pour vous aider à commencer une recherche;
*des dossiers spéciaux sur des sujets d’actualité qui rassemblent toute l’information pertinente pouvant vous aiguiller dans vos recherches
*plus de 100 lois annotées pancanadiennes incluant les annotations d’ouvrages comme les AlterEgo de Wilson & Lafleur, le Code civil annoté de Baudouin-Renaud, etc.
*un accès exclusif à la Collection de droit de l’École du Barreau.

– Des banques de données accessibles à distance telles que : dèsLibris (Irwin Law’s e-library), LexBase, et bien plus encore.

Bénéficiez également du soutien personnalisé d’une équipe de recherchistes-formateurs qualifiés pour vous accompagner dans vos recherches en mode clavardage, de 8 h à 20 h du lundi au jeudi et de 8 h à 17 h le vendredi.

Finalement, Mon CAIJ, l’espace de travail personnalisé et confidentiel, vous offre des fonctionnalités adaptées à votre pratique, notamment :

– Sauvegarde de vos requêtes de recherche, de sources et d’archivage
– Alertes personnalisées associées à vos requêtes
– Prêt, réservation et/ou livraison de documents (des frais peuvent s’appliquer)

Une formation sur les outils du CAIJ sera offert à la bibliothèque le 27 janvier 2020. Inscrivez-vous dès maintenant.

All databases are accessible directly from the Law Subject Guide. If you have any questions regarding these new products, please contact us at law.library@mcgill.ca.

New Exhibition: The Unfinished Path to Reconciliation

“Reconciliation is not an Indigenous problem – it is a Canadian problem. It involves all of us,” said Justice Murray Sinclair, chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, which was tasked with investigating and commemorating the residential school system.

As Justice Sinclair and many others have said, education is key to reconciliation. As institutions that are both repositories for knowledge and natural gathering places, libraries can play an important role in reconciliation. With this goal, the Nahum Gelber Law Library offers to its visitors a new exhibition: The Unfinished Path to Reconciliation.

 

The blended-media exhibition features primary documents, books, reproductions of archival documents and memorabilia and highlight important cases on native’s rights. The exhibition includes digital materials presented on an interactive touch-table.

The use of touch-table for this Law Library exhibition is a part of the McGill Library Innovation in Service project. The exhibition was curated by Sonia Smith.