After a grueling month of moving books, packing, unpacking, furniture disassembly and reassembly, we’re back! Here’s an update on what is currently available at the CCLA Library:

Public Computers

There are three computers available for use. You can print from these computers (black and white only). All of these computers are set up to access WestlawNext Canada, Lexis Advance Quicklaw, Thomson Reuters ProView, and a whole bunch of other great research tools.

Print Collection

All of the books that we chose to keep out during the renovation are now in the Lounge. You can call this collection our Greatest Hits. As always, books are for Courthouse use only – if you wish to take a book to court, please see a CCLA Library staff member to sign the book out. Books are due back to a staff member by 5:00 every day.

Photocopiers and Fax

We have one photocopier available for copying and scanning, and one fax machine. For payment for copies or print jobs, we accept cheques, cards, or firm account only (no cash).

Library Staff Assistance

We’re here! We’ve propped open the doors between the Lounge and the Library (we’ll be taking them down entirely soon), and you can find us just past those doors. We’ve also re-opened the helplines, so free free to call or email. During this time, we can order in books from other libraries if we don’t have what you need, but if you’re reading this from a library we normally lend to, we’re sorry but we can’t lend anything at this time.

Workspace

We’re a bit short on space at the moment for studying. There are a few tables in the lounge, but nothing available in the Library itself. This is a temporary measure and we’ll have more space available later this year.

One other big change is that the old “main doors” to the library are no longer in service. They’ll be back in the future, but for now they will remain locked. The only entrance to the Library is through the lounge, and while we acknowledge this does make it more difficult to find us, and harder to get in if you do not have a code, this is only a temporary measure. We will be open again through the main entrance later this year. Contact us if you need the code for the lounge.

We thank every one for their patience over the last month – we know how difficult it can be to carry on business at court without the services the CCLA provides.

We’re so excited that it’s Clawbie time again! Since there are so, so many superb choices to pick from and we are limited to three nominees, we decided again to stick with what we did last year: highlighting some of our favourite bloggers local to the Ottawa region. So here we go!

Ottawa Employment and Labour Law Blog
Andrew Vey & Paul Willetts (Vey Willetts LLP) / @VW_Lawyers

Andrew and Paul’s blog is so accessible, which is something we really appreciate as members of a law-adjacent profession! We love their writing style and their posts are always interesting, relevant and timely.

Some of our favourite blog posts this year:

• Secret recordings in the workplace: a review of legal and practical consequences
• Vey Willetts Launches Ottawa Severance Pay Calculator
• Employee Misconduct and Online Anonymity

Law21 Blog
Jordan Furlong / @jordan_law21

Anyone who’s read a post on Law21 can appreciate how thoughtful, insightful, and forward-thinking they are, and we are no exception. 

Some of our favourite blog posts this year:

• How to bring about change in law firms
• Legal Demand 3.0
• Law firms’ problem with women

Diversonomics Podcast (or on iTunes)
Roberto Aburto & Sarah Willis (Gowling WLG) / @robaburto

A timely and welcome addition to the ever-growing Canadian legal podcast scene, we were delighted to discover the Diversonomics series by local Gowling WLG lawyers. Roberto and Sarah launched season two this year, which continues to take on the difficult topics of diversity and inclusion in the legal profession.

Some of their notable episodes this year:

• 202 Access granted: Leveraging corporate social responsibility through legal social mobility
• 203 A seat at the table: It’s time for women to get on boards
• 206 Trans-forming the norm: Gender identity in the legal profession

This is our last week of posting on Robeside Assistance for 2017, so we wanted to kick things off with our year end review! This year has gone by in a blur, especially these last few weeks as we get the library ready for renovations in the new year. (To answer a question we’re asked a lot: Nope, we didn’t get the month of December off! We’ve been super busy organizing the book collection, furniture, and assorted belongings of the Association. It’s like packing up your house, when you’ve been living in it for 30 years!)

We expect things to be a bit hectic around here for much of the next year, but we’re delighted that we’ll still be able to blog and bring you the latest news in online research, new books, cool throwbacks, and of course, Ottawa blogs and decisions. Tomorrow, we’ll be publishing our Clawbie picks for 2017, so stay tuned for those.

Much like last year, our most-read posts are always the Ottawa decision and blog post round-ups. In case you missed them the first time around, here are some of our other most popular blog posts from 2017:

• Fighting the Good Link Rot Fight (January): In the beginning of the year, the Supreme Court released a new project to fight link rot in judicial decisions. Not sure what link rot even is? Check out that post!
• Research Tip: New CanLII Highlighting Feature (February): We know you all love CanLII, so this was a great new feature released this year.
• Judicial Decisions with Missing Graphics (May): This post stemmed from a reference question we received in the library. Bonus: it featured Mayor McCheese.
• #ThrowbackThursday: Pre-Place Bell (June): Ottawa’a favourite construction site featured in this post from June. I think we might actually be close to the front entrance being opened!
• vLex Canada now available at the CCLA Library (August): The CCLA was the first county courthouse library in the province to team up with vLex to offer take away service for this database. Check out the news release in this post.
• New on CanLII: Browne v. Dunn (October): Christmas came early for legal research fans, as the elusive Browne v. Dunn was added to CanLII.