News

Missing Books

Posted on by Amanda Elliott

I am currently halfway done our annual shelf reading of the CCLA’s library collection.  A shelf reading involves taking a printed list of everything that should be on our shelves, and actually checking each title, one by one, to see if it’s there. We do this annually to put the books in their proper order and to determine which books have gone missing during the past year.  While our collection is non-circulating, we still have many books that disappear and never find their way back home.  Many of these books are left around the courthouse or taken to a firm’s office.  It is very costly to replace books that have gone missing, when it cuts into our budget to purchase new books that could help expand our collection.  I have listed below some of our books that have gone missing recently from our collection:

  • The 2010 annotated Ontario Family Law Act (Carswell)
  • The law of contract in Canada (Carswell)
  • Annotated Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security Act (CCH Canadian)
  • High conflict people in legal disputes (Janis Publications)
  • New lawyer practice series : civil litigation (LSUC)
  • New lawyer practice series : family law : 2008 (LSUC)
  • Economic negligence : the recovery of pure economic loss (Carswell)
  • Best practices for commercial mortgage transactions (LSUC)
  • Special lectures 2002 : real property law : conquering the complexities (LSUC)
  • Probate essentials 2008 (LSUC)
  • Construction Lien Essentials (LSUC)
  • New developments in personal injury law 2009 (Middlesex Law Association)
  • Libel (Butterworths)
  • Corporate transactions for law clerks : the changing environment (LSUC)


If you come about any of these texts, or any other books belonging to the CCLA , we would appreciate it if they were returned to the library.  You can give them directly to a library staff member, or even just leave them on a book cart in the library.  Once I have completed my shelf read I will list a few more books that I have discovered to be missing, in hopes of seeing their return.

CCLA Library Access

Posted on by ktribe

The CCLA recently began offering memberships to law students and paralegals, and this has created some confusion about what individuals may access the CCLA Library and its resources. We’ve outlined the details of library access below, and encourage members of the legal community to read it in order to clarify some of this confusion.

The CCLA Library is paid for via the membership dues of lawyers accredited by the Law Society of Upper Canada. As part of their Law Society membership, lawyers pay a library levy which is then allocated to libraries in regions across Ontario. The CCLA Library is also partially funded by the County of Carleton Law Association (CCLA) via its members. For these reasons, the library is meant only for the aforementioned individuals. The CCLA has recently opened memberships to law students and paralegals so that they can also access the library and its resources; however, they must purchase a CCLA membership in order to do so. The CCLA Library also allows those that are working directly under a lawyer, at the lawyer’s firm, to access the library on the lawyer’s behalf, which is why articling students have historically been permitted to access the library.

To reiterate, only lawyers accredited by the Law Society, CCLA Members, and individuals working under the above groups at their firm may access the CCLA Library’s services.

We hope this helps to clarify some confusion. Please note that CCLA Members also receive a number of other benefits offered by the CCLA, such as 24/7 library access, free Wi-Fi, discounts for CCLA Events, and exclusive services via businesses in the Ottawa community. If you are interested in becoming a CCLA Member, we encourage you to check out the Membership section of CCLA’s Website.

Want a Starbucks gift card? Take our survey!

Posted on by Jennifer Walker

By Jennifer Walker

The CCLA Library would like your feedback, and we’re not above giving away Starbucks gift cards to get it!

We’ve put together a very short survey for you to answer – just five questions about our library services. If you’d like a chance at winning one of two gift cards for Starbucks, just leave your name and contact information at the bottom of the survey. If you’d rather remain anonymous, we’d still love your feedback – you can just leave the contact information area empty. Unfortunately, you can’t win a gift card, but we might just have a chocolate treat for you as thanks if you stop by the library. The survey will be open until November 19, 2010. We’ll be letting the two lucky respondents know they’ve won on the following Monday!

With this survey, we’d like to hear more from Ottawa-area legal professionals about what they like about the library, which of our products and services they use, and any improvements we can make. With the results, we hope to better tailor our library service and collection for today’s legal community, and make the CCLA Library your first stop for legal research.

We thank you very much for taking the time to fill out this survey, and good luck!

To take the survey, please click here.

Conference and Website Updates

Posted on by Jennifer Walker

By Jennifer Walker

While the rest of the CCLA staff members are busy with preparations for both our Criminal Law and Civil Litigation Conferences at the Montebello, we librarians are gearing up for a conference of our own. Katie and I will be in Toronto this coming Thursday and Friday for an annual conference for Ontario courthouse librarians. This session is a chance for us to meet with the other librarians in our system (the same librarians that so graciously lend us books when you need them!), as well as a wonderful dinner at Osgoode Hall. This year, Katie and I will be delivering a presentation on the new CCLA website, which includes this blog, our Twitter account, and our Conference Papers Database. Amanda will be here while we’re out of the library (she has an amazing professional development workshop next month, don’t worry!), so you can check with her for reference assistance.

Speaking of the CCLA website, we couldn’t be more thrilled about two new developments. The first is the aforementioned Conference Papers Database. After some considerable behind the scenes work, we’ve now made it possible to search the database without logging into the website. If you’d like access to the PDF files contained, you’ll still need to be a CCLA member and log-in, but for a quick browse to see just how many great papers we have filed away, you can do that easily and quickly. Find it under the “Library” tab of the website, or click here.

The second project we’re excited about is this very blog. We gave hosting the blog on the CCLA website the ol’ college try, but in the end, Katie and I were just not thrilled with the results. And so, hopefully within the next week or two, we’ll be moving everything over to our brand new blog! We’ve seen the design prototype from our website designers, and it looks fantastic. The new blog will be built on a WordPress platform (which is much, much easier to use for blogging than this website, and will make doing all manner of “blog things” easier). Stayed tuned for this change – we think you’ll love it.

Supreme Court Library Tours

Posted on by admin

by Katie Tribe

Just a note that the Supreme Court of Canada Library recently notified us that tours of the Court and library are being offered to articling students next month. I’ve taken the tour and can vouch that both the Court and library are fascinating and beautiful; since tours of the Supreme Court aren’t available very often, I definitely recommend attending or sharing this opportunity with the students at your firm.

Tours are being arranged for the following dates and times:

French session:

Tuesday, September 14th, 2010 at 9:30 AM – Court Tour
Tuesday, September 14th, 2010 at 10:00 AM – Library Tour

English session:

Tuesday, September 14th, 2010 at 10:30 AM – Court Tour
Tuesday, September 14th, 2010 at 11:00 AM – Library Tour

Wednesday, September 15th, 2010 at 9:30 AM – Court Tour
Wednesday, September 15th, 2010 at 10:00 AM – Library Tour

Wednesday, September 15th, 2010 at 10:30 AM – Court Tour
Wednesday, September 15th, 2010 at 11:00 AM – Library Tour

When attending the tour, simply meet the guides in the Grand Entrance Hall just inside the main front entrance of the building. Each session lasts approximately 30 to 40 minutes.

If you or someone you know is interested in attending, contact the Supreme Court Library’s Reference Desk by email at library@scc-csc.gc.ca prior to September 7th indicating your time and language preference.The Reference Desk will contact you for confirmation after receiving your email.

I highly recommend scheduling some time to check out this beautiful building and library! Of course, the CCLA Library is also offering tours this fall, so be sure to get in touch with us if you’d like to stop by!

Articling Student Library Tours – Update

Posted on by admin

By Jennifer Walker

The CCLA Library staff will be offering additional tours of our collection on the following dates. Please RSVP with Reference Librarian Katie Tribe for any of the tours listed below. Tours typically last approximately 20 minutes.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010 – 10:30 am, 2:30 pm
Thursday, August 5, 2010 – 10:30 am, 2:30 pm
Tuesday, August 10, 2010 – 10:30 am, 2:30 pm
Thursday, August 12, 2010 – 10:30 am, 2:30 pm
Tuesday, August 17, 2010 – 10:30 am, 2:30 pm
Thursday, August 19, 2010 – 10:30 am, 2:30 pm

Cool New Westlaw Updates

Posted on by admin

by Katie Tribe

As mentioned in past posts, at the library we spend a considerable amount of time helping people locate cases. Through time and repetitive use, we really get to know some of the nooks and crannies of our electronic database (think Quicklaw, Westlaw, Criminal Spectrum, O’Brien’s), and notice and appreciate when subtle changes are made that make searching swifter and more effective. One of our products, Westlaw Canada, has created a few new features over the past month or so that are really making us happy. Here’s a list so that you can start noticing and taking advantage of them as well!

1. Displaying the citation frequency of cases

Everyone knows the pain of having to browse through a large number of search results to find one powerful case. Westlaw recently made it easier to identify significant cases by displaying the amount of times the case has been judicially considered in the search results. When browsing the results, you’ll now see a note in brackets at the bottom of the case summary that states how many times the case has been considered, making it easy to determine its precidential value. The citation frequency is also listed after cases that show up in the citation list when you note up a case.

Westlaw also now allows you to limit your searches to cases that have been judicially considered. In the same way that you can limit cases by jurisdiction, timeline, and decision type, you’ll now find a drop down menu for citation frequency on the search screen. Pretty awesome!

2. Rules Concordance

I’m not sure how long this feature has been around, but it’s one that we’ve noticed and taken advantage of recently because a client was trying to locate an equivalent family law rule in a different jurisdiction. You’ll find the Rules Concordance in the “Browse Table of Contents” section of the main Westlaw page. It’s organized by subject areas that you can browse by expanding folders, much like other Westlaw Products such as the Canadian Encyclopedic Digest (CED). Browse through the subject areas to find a complete list of rules related to your subject, separated by jurisdiction. Of course, the list includes hyperlinks that will take you to the full text of the rule you’re interested in.

3. ResultsPlus

Another new feature, ResultsPlus, suggests related analytical material (think links to secondary sources like the CED) next to your search results. If you view your search results in full screen mode, you’ll see ResultsPlus to the right of your search results. If you’re not in full screen mode, you can access it by clicking the tiny arrow in the upper right hand corner of your screen. When you are viewing an individual case, the ResultsPlus information will be listed under the “Related Info” tab on the left side of your screen. To refresh your memory, the Related Info tab is also where you’ll find links to the history of the case and any citing references. I haven’t used the ResultsPlus feature yet, but will definitely be checking it out, as I often find the best cases when using tools like the CED.

4. “Related Terms” and “Did you mean…?”

In a step towards the style of the powerful search engines we use on a daily basis (I’m obviously referring to Google here) Westlaw has added features that suggest related terms and notice spelling errors when you type in a search. If you are using search terms to find cases, you’ll now find a related terms box at the top of your full screen results page, listing related terminology that Westlaw will easily add to your search with a simple click. The related terms box will also show up on the main search page when you edit your search. Like Google, Westlaw will also now notice your spelling errors and suggest a different word at the top of your results list.

In life and in researching, it really is the little things that make the biggest difference. Thanks to Westlaw for making things a little bit easier for us with these new features; we hope that you’ll check them out! As always, if you need help locating or using these new tools and features, please don’t hesitate to ask us for help.

Green Library News

Posted on by ktribe

If you’ve been by the library in the last couple of months, you’ve likely noticed all the development taking place to install a new green roof at the courthouse! The CCLA Library staff is a fairly environmentally-minded bunch (our front desk area may be a tad reminiscent of a greenhouse) and so we were pretty excited when the news was first announced. Lately, contractors have been walking around outside our windows working on the roof, and we’ve been able to track their progress. So far, there’s just been a whole lot of digging and moving around of concrete slabs, but we’re hoping the roof will be green and growing before the end of the summer. To quench some of the anticipation, I’ve been doing a little bit of research into some of the benefits of green roofs. Apparently they do nifty things like:

–  extend roof life by providing structural protection; green roofs last about twice as long as conventional roofs!

–  reduce heating and cooling costs; just imagine the difference between the temperature of your driveway and the temperature of your lawn on a summer day

–  provide sound insulation, reducing noise; certainly ideal for a library

–  create a beautiful aesthetic space while improving employee and client morale; many green roofs can also be used for meeting and recreational purposes

–  raise the profile and property value of a building in the community

–  assist in storm water retention and management

–  expand and promote green space while reducing dust and smog in the environment

–  provide a natural habitat for wildlife in urban areas

–  provide opportunities to grow flowers, plants, and food

Green roofs and green building design have really been catching on in North America in the last decade or so, and they’re already very common in many European countries. Did you know that Toronto recently created a green roof by-law that makes green roofs required on new buildings? While we’re not quite there yet, it’s wonderful to see some change happening here in Ottawa, as well.

All of the above benefits are certainly grounds for excitement. However, the really big news for both the library staff, and you, our library users, is that one of the large green roof sections is directly outside of the main library window. This means that we’ll all be able to gaze out onto the green roof while reading or working in the library!

These changes have really inspired me to look into other ways that we can make the library more green. I’ll keep you posted, on the roof and any of our own progress. For now, I’m just really happy to be working in a building that is a leader in Ottawa’s green movement.

If you’d like to learn more about green roofs, check out http://greenroofs.org.

2010 Family Law Conference Papers

Posted on by admin

by Katie Tribe

Just a note to inform you that Amanda recently uploaded all the papers from the CCLA’s 19th Annual Institute of Family Law Conference to our Conference Paper Database. Have you checked out the database yet? It contains digital copies of conference papers and materials from the CCLA’s four cornerstone conferences: Civil Litigation, Criminal Law, Family Law, and Solicitors. The papers go as far back as 2001. An awesome thing about the database (other than offering free, downloadable papers, of course!) is that it contains complete and detailed records, and is user-friendly and searchable. This means that you can locate a paper by conference, year, title, author, or subject. No more leafing through multiple giant binders to find the paper you need! Conference materials are also amazing resources when researching a unique, emerging, or very specific topic.

On a related note, in case you haven’t heard, the CCLA recently announced that law students and paralegals can now become members of the CCLA! Check out the announcement here. This news is very relevant to the Conference Paper Database since it is accessible to CCLA members only; to search the database and download the papers, you must log in using your membership log-in name and ID. If you are a member and aren’t sure about your log-in name or ID, please get in touch with us! We can help you out. If you’d like to become a lawyer, student, or paralegal member of the CCLA, you can join right on our website.

We hope you’ll take some time to check out the Conference Paper Database! You can find it here, under the Library tab on the website.

CCLA Library Tours for Students

Posted on by admin

By Jennifer Walker

Every summer, we like to invite all the new Summer and Articling students in Ottawa to the CCLA library for a tour. We try to let all the firms and sole practitioners know, so they can set that up, but if you’re a student and are reading this, please feel free to book yourself for a tour! Our tours last about 15 to 20 minutes, and of course, are right here in the library at Courthouse at 161 Elgin Street.

This year, we have some really exciting news for students that we’re pleased to share: we now have a “Student” membership category! Previously, students were not eligible to be members, and so could not take advantage of any of the member perks. This new category will let students have all the benefits other members do, including the after-hours access to the CCLA Library, but for a pretty great reduced price. Without membership, access to the library will be limited to our normal business hours – Monday to Friday, 8:30 am to 5:00 pm.

We have scheduled tours for the following times – if you would like to schedule your students, or yourself, for a tour, please RSVP by email to Katie Tribe.

May
Thursday, May 6, 2010 – 10:30 am
Thursday, May 13, 2010 – 10:30 am
Monday, May 17, 2010 – 10:30am, 2:00 pm
Thursday, May 20, 2010 – 10:30 am, 2:00 pm
Wednesday, May 26, 2010 – 10:30 am, 2:00 pm

June
Wednesday, June 2, 2010 – 10:30 am
Wednesday, June 9, 2010 – 10:30 am

August
Tuesday, August 24, 2010 – 10:30 am
Thursday, August 26, 2010 – 10:30 am
Tuesday, August 31, 2010 – 10:30 am

September
Thursday, September 2, 2010 – 10:30 am
Wednesday, September 8, 2010 – 10:30 am, 2:00 pm
Friday, September 10, 2010 – 10:30 am, 2:00 pm
Monday, September 13, 2010 – 10:30 am, 2:00 pm
Wednesday, September 15, 2010 – 10:30 am, 2:00 pm
Friday, September 17, 2010 – 10:30 am, 2:00 pm
Wednesday, September 22, 2010 – 10:30 am
Wednesday, September 29, 2010 – 2:00 pm

If none of these sessions will work, just let Katie know – we can always schedule another tour time!