Library Tips

Library Information for Summer Students

Posted on by Jennifer Walker

Welcome new Ottawa summer students! If you’re a law student working a firm this summer, we’d like to invite you to a tour of the CCLA Library and learn more about our services. Library tours are a great opportunity to meet library staff and learn about the legal research services and resources we can offer, training opportunities, and legal services to support and assist a legal practice. We also encourage any and all students to sign up for the CCLA Newsletter to begin learning about news, events, and opportunities in the East Region. The newsletter is always free, and not tied to CCLA membership.

Tours will be held beginning May 11 on Wednesdays at 10:30 AM, and usually take between 15 to 20 minutes. Please email library@ccla-abcc.ca or call 613-233-7386 x221 to schedule a tour. Need another time? Would rather meet virtually? We can do that, too! Email the library and let us know how we can help you get started this summer.

CCLA Library Catalogue: 1990-2019

Posted on by Jennifer Walker

Big changes are underway at the CCLA Library with regard to our online catalogue. It was in 1990 that the CCLA replaced the old card catalogue with an online system, as announced in the newsletter below. Sorry to everyone who wants the actual old card catalogue for their home – it’s long gone!

From the August 1990 CCLA Bulletin

From our understanding, this was the first courthouse library catalogue in the province. Go us! In time, however, the Law Society’s Great Library catalogue (Advocat) came into being, and more recently, their Infolocate search engine, which looks through library holdings for every courthouse library in Ontario (including the CCLA) *and* the online CPD materials prepared by the Law Society.

Due to required software and hardware upgrades at the CCLA, it was time to decide what to do with our now redundant catalogue. We have made the call to sunset our dear old catalogue in favour of the admittedly far superior Great Library catalogue. We’ve updated the links on our website and in-library computers.

Some much better features of the Great Library catalogue software that CCLA Library users will enjoy:

  • Fuzzy searching: You don’t have to spell everything exactly right to get results. This was a huge drawback of our old in-house catalogue
  • Tables of contents: Lots of the entries for texts books or looseleafs will have a table of contents in the item record. You can look at what’s in a resource without leaving your computer.
  • Law Society of Ontario CPD materials: When searching the catalogue, you’ll also pull up hits for individual PDFs of relevant conference papers from LSO CPD.

Please Note: Selecting the CCLA Library

When you access Infolocate, the default is to search all of the Ontario courthouse libraries.

If you wish to limit this to just Ottawa, select Carleton County in the drop down  menu:

Library Tours for Summer Students

Posted on by Jennifer Walker

With summer students starting in the firms, we’d like to remind everyone that we offer library tours! This year we’re very excited to be able to offer them tours in the newly renovated library! Library tours are a great opportunity to meet library staff and learn about library resources, training opportunities, and legal services to support and assist a legal practice. We also encourage any and all students to sign up for the CCLA Newsletter to begin learning about news, events, and opportunities in the East Region. The newsletter is always free, and not tied to CCLA membership.

Tours will be held beginning May 14 on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10:30 AM, and usually take between 15 to 20 minutes. Please email library@ccla-abcc.ca or call 613-233-7386 x221 to schedule a tour.

Post-Library Reno Update: Reserve Books

Posted on by Jennifer Walker

A few people have asked after our old “Reserve” collection – where is it now that we don’t have a row of shelves behind the front desk? The answer: we decided to do away with a large bookshelf wall behind the front desk, and have pared down what we wanted to keep in a Reserve collection. These are the most in-demand texts. All killer, no filler, you might say. As always, books aren’t to leave the courthouse, but if you need the most recent Criminal Code, Family Law Rules, civil practice, small claims guide, or the ever-popular Ontario Courtroom Procedure, stop at the front desk and we can get it for you.

Since we’re only keeping a small number of books in Reserve, this is a great opportunity for us to use our old barrister bookcase, which we had restored over the winter.

Before:

This sweet little shelf sat outside of Rick’s office. The metal mechanisms on the doors were all in terrible condition. Frankly, opening a shelf always felt like a bit of a dare – would this be the opening that broke the metal brackets or glass?! The finish had also turned a bit yellow with age.

After:

How great does it look now? Fun fact: when the refinishers started work, red dye was coming out of the literal woodwork, telling us that this used to be a mahogany colour many years ago. We opted for a more natural wood colour, and couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. You can see our small Reserve collection in here for now. We may opt for something more industrial or modern (in keeping with the space) in the future, but for now we quite love how this looks, and the mix of old and new that it brings to the Library.

Information for 2018-2019 Articling Students

Posted on by Jennifer Walker

The CCLA is happy to welcome all of Ottawa’s new articling students for the 2018-2019 articling year! In this post, we’ve put together information for new students about library and other association services to hopefully assist you over the next year.

CCLA Library and Research Assistance Services

The CCLA is currently in the middle of a large renovation project. While it is expected to be completed this fall, we are unable to currently offer a Lounge in the courthouse. We are, however, very excited to share our new Library space with you. Located on the main (2nd) floor of the Courthouse, you can find us across from Courtroom 23. We’re staffed Monday to Friday, 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM. You can also get in touch with us by email.So what do we have? How can we help? Here’s a rundown for you:Our library collection includes:

  • WestlawNext Canada and Lexis Advance Quicklaw, free in-Library use
  • JustisOne and ICLR Online, for British and other commonwealth case law, for in-Library use
  • DivorceMate, for those working in family law
  • Thomson Reuters ProView, for online books, free in-Library use
  • Wide variety of print resources covering almost all subject areas
  • Extensive legislative print collection, including City of Ottawa by-laws

Our services include:

  • Case retrieval
  • Assistance formulating a research plan or suggesting which resources you may want to look at
  • Legislative research help
  • Assistance with Quicklaw and Westlaw use
  • Forms and precedents retrieval

The library is also equipped with computers, printer/copiers, a fax machine, and scanning facilities, so if you need to do any of those while in the courthouse or during your research, we’re here! There is a charge for printing and faxing services, so speak with a CCLA Library staff member for more details on that. We’re a cash-less facility, but we accept Visa, Mastercard, American Express, debit, and firm accounts.

Finally, CCLA members have access to free WiFi in the courthouse. Stop by the front desk of the Library for more details.

The most important thing to remember? We’re here to help!

Tours of the CCLA Library

If you would like a tour of the library, please get in touch and we will work to accommodate you or your group.

Additional Information

CCLA student memberships are available for your articling term! You do not need to be a member to use the CCLA Library, but you will need to be a member should you wish to access the library after hours. It also provides discounts at great member partners, offers discounted rates for CCLA programming, and connects you to our great local legal community. You can register online, or get in contact with our Membership Services Assistant, Sonia Morin.

The CCLA has a great weekly e-newsletter that is completely free and not connected to a membership. Every Wednesday, you’ll get a listing of all the freshest job postings, upcoming CPD, and other news of interest to the legal community. Please sign up for this here. You can modify your subscription preferences at any time.

Finally, follow us on Twitter! We’re also on Facebook and LinkedIn, if that’s more your speed.

International Materials on Quicklaw Advance

Posted on by Brenda Lauritzen

Looking for international materials? While we are quite fortunate here to have access to some great British databases, often times we are asked about American or Australian case law as well. Perhaps lesser-known is that our Lexis Advance subscription has some coverage of these countries also!

To access them, on the left side of the main screen’s search bar you will notice a country flag. By clicking on this it will bring you to a dropdown menu where you can select which country’s materials you would like to search.

 

After you enter a search term, you can also easily navigate between countries through the sidebar where you will see these flags again, for example in the screenshot below. Underneath there is also a nice breakdown of the different types of content available, so you can narrow down your results if you are only interested in a specific type.

 

 

As you can see from this very generic “wrongful dismissal” search, there is quite a lot of international content on there! It’s definitely worth checking out if you’re looking for foreign materials.

 

Library Tip: eLooseleafs on Proview Now Included in WestlawNext Searching

Posted on by Brenda Lauritzen

We’d like to highlight a new(ish) feature for WestlawNext this week, in that they have added search integration with our Proview looseleafs! Now when you enter a search from the homescreen, hits from looseleafs available on the Proview platform will also show up in the search results, as you can see in the screenshot below:

Like other categories, you can click through the “View All” link to see other results from our looseleafs as well. Clicking on any of the titles will automatically link you over to the Proview platform so you can read the full title from there. Very useful in having one place that will search both platforms!

CCH Content Now on Lexis Advance Quicklaw

Posted on by Brenda Lauritzen

We’re happy to report that former CCH looseleafs have been added to our Quicklaw Subscription. You can now access the following resources in electronic format on our library computers:

  • Canadian Insurance Law Reporter
  • Ontario Real Estate Law Guide
  • Ontario Corporations Law Guide
  • Canadian Commercial Law Guide
  • Canada Corporations Law Reports
  • Canadian Estate Administration Guide
  • Canadian Family Law Guide
  • Canadian Employment Benefits & Pension Guide
  • Canadian Labour Law Reporter

The easiest way to get to these is to click on “Browse” in the top toolbar, and then click on Sources. From there you can browse or search for whatever you would like! There are now also a wealth of newsletters available that you can subscribe to, including Ontario Real Estate Developments, Canadian Family Law Matters, Accident Benefits Cases Summaries, Labour Notes, and many more.

Still feeling a little iffy about the new Quicklaw Advance inferface? Come join us for a free training session on March 22! All are welcome; please RSVP here.

Research Tip: Using Google to Site Search

Posted on by Brenda Lauritzen

In the course of online legal research (especially legislative) it’s not uncommon that you come across a website’s built-in search engine that refuses to cooperate with what you want it to do. Whether that be a lack of filters, spurious results, or just a bad user interface, there are many offenders (especially, sadly, on our government websites). This at best can lead to frustration and at worst to wasting hours of time not being able to find what you’re looking for. Fortunately, there’s a underused method to leverage Google’s search engines to assist, which I’ll detail below.

But let me start by giving an example. Say we’re looking for Hansard Debates or Committee Proceedings on the Ontario Legislative Assembly website that discuss the Police Services Amendment Act of 1997. I was able to pull up the page for the bill, as seen below, but I unfortunately soon discover that the Act was earlier than when they start directly linking out to any related debates or committee reports from that page.

Knowing, however, that they do have the Debates and Committee Documents online dating back to at least the 1970s, there must be a way to find them. You could try using their built-in search engine at the top right, or even their Advanced Hansard search, but by doing so I’ve usually found myself wading through multiple long documents, most of which do not pertain to what I am looking for.

Fortunately, there’s a quicker way, and Google can be used to do a lot of the heavy lifting here. You can easily narrow a generic Google search to search only a single website. To do this, in a regular google search just type in:

site:http://www.ontla.on.ca/ police services act 105

This will search all of the Ontario Legislative Assembly’s website for the keywords Police Services Act and 105 (I used the bill number to narrow it down from other amending acts). Voila, you can see below our more relevant results linking directly to committee reports, in the usual Google format we are familiar with.

You can do this with any website whose search engine might not be the best. Just use:

site:[url] [keywords]

And let Google do its thing.

Resource Spotlight: Bullen & Leake & Jacob’s Canadian Precedents of Pleadings

Posted on by Jennifer Walker

Once a month, Robeside Assistance will feature a resource that we purchase for the library that you might not know we have. Our collection is full of great books, databases, programs, and other materials, so definitely visit us in the library if you’d like to use anything mentioned here!

BLJ

If pressed to name our favourite books in the library, Brenda and I would both include Bullen & Leake & Jacob’s Canadian Precedents of Pleadings in our top three. Tucked away in the civil litigation section, this gem of a title seems to always provide just what we need, when we need it. Based on the long-published British book of similar name (Bullen & Leake & Jacob’s Precedents of Pleadings, currently in its 18th edition), this book offers a huge selection of sample pleadings in a wide variety of legal areas. I find myself reaching for this book when asked for sample personal injury pleading examples, and Brenda has used this for the construction pleadings as well. You can take a browse through the impressively detailed table of contents here.  The book came with a CD-ROM, too, which has copies of the precedents contained in the book. No need to re-type – just let us know at the Reference Desk that you’d like to use the CD and you can take home copies of the precedents you that need, ready to be modified.

If you’d like to look through this excellent resource yourself, you can find it in our Texts section at KF 8868.1 B85 2013.