127 e-books
Over 1,500 journals
Supreme Court Decisions
English Reports
US legislation
Historical Canadian legislation
Any time. Any place.

Legal information where you are.

Courthouse Libraries BC is proud to introduce the Reading Room, our online library that BC lawyers can access for free. Now, for the first time, you can view e-books, journals, case reporters and more from your home or office, simply by visiting our website.

Currently, Members of the Law Society of BC have access to two subscription databases, though we’re planning to add more this year:

Hein Online

Available on our library computers since 2003, Hein Online is now accessible via the Reading
Room. Our expanded subscription includes Canadian and international journal articles, US law, the English Reports (full reprint), Canadian Acts from preconfederation to 2010, the Supreme Court Reports (scanned from the print volumes, from volume one to 2010), and more.

Irwin Law e-Library

It's a new product at our library, but content of this collection of e-books will be familiar to anyone who has used an Irwin Law title before (perhaps in law school?). The e-Library collection contains 127 unabridged ebooks on a broad range of legal subjects, including the award-winning "Essentials of Canadian Law" series, which offers concise, up-to-date summaries and analyses of major topics in Canadian law. (This collection is also available on the library computers, making it accessible to members of the public as long as the library is open).

You can read Irwin Law e-Library titles through the e-Library interface, or download customized pdfs to read later.

The library is also developing a series of tutorials to help you navigate these products. In the meantime, feel free to contact library staff with any questions.

Signing up for Reading Room access is simple: just visit the Reading Room Page and follow the instructions.

If you have a web account with CLBC, you simply need to upgrade your account. If you don't have a website account, you can create one yourself in a couple minutes. Once our staff have confirmed your status as a Law Society of BC member, we will upgrade your account, then contact you.

Bringing Information to BC's Legal Community, One Lawyer at a Time

The Reading Room is a vital part of our effort to shape our website and collections to meet the needs of the legal communities we serve. We're bringing legal information to BC's legal community – any time, any place. We think the Reading Room will be especially helpful to lawyers in small firms, lawyers in smaller communities, and new calls.

The Reading Room is meant to serve you. If you have any questions or feedback, please let us know. This project will continue to evolve as technology, legal publishing, and lawyers' needs change, and we can't make it happen without your input!

A close look at Mysupportcalculator's new, free support calculator.

photo by jakeandlindsay

Recently, our Kamloops branch manager, Denise, drew our attention to a website called www.MySupportCalculator.ca. Aimed at members of the public, the site offers simplified version of DIVORCEmate’s Tools 2K calculation software, as well as a directory of family lawyers in the user’s geographic area. Listing a law firm on the site is free for now, but owner MySupportCalculator Ltd will start charging for the service in December 2011.

The calculator was created by York University Phd student Noel Semple, who told me that “MySupportCalculator is designed to bring Canadians (i) free and accurate basic child and spousal support calculations, (ii) education about these legal obligations, and (iii) connections to family law professionals.”

Users of the Kamloops library regularly ask if the library has access to family law software like DIVORCEmate, so Denise was pleased to find a calculator that was free and easy to use. But, as a recent newsletter from DIVORCEmate notes, this calculator will only handle “most simple and uncomplicated financial situations.” Or, as family law practitioner JP Boyd put it in a recent conversation, “It will be okay for average users with average problems. But not for people with more complicated tax situations.”

I spoke with Boyd because he has been vocal about his concern regarding the lack of public access to calculators for the Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines formulas. He is especially passionate on his public legal education website, where he frames the issue as a matter of access to justice.

“I’m happy that this is calculator is available,” he told me, “Though it does have some minor programming issues. The calculator allows you to report that you’ve been married for longer than you’ve been alive, for example.” Boyd has tested the software and reports that the numbers it generates are close to DIVORCEmate’s, but are not identical.

Lisa M. Slater, a family lawyer with Davis LLP, feels that the calculator may be useful for educating the public about spousal support obligations in a general sense. She thought it might be useful for producing a rough idea of potential child and spousal support obligations, “provided the user recognizes the significant limitations on usefulness and accuracy of the calculator.”

She notes that “care must be taken by the user to read the information and helpful hints, or the user may not realize the limitations on use and accuracy of the support calculations generated by the program.” I would add that similar care should be taken by library staff who recommend the product. Make sure self-representing litigants and other users know that this site is not designed to be a replacement for legal counsel.

Semple puts it another way: “We hope that it will be a helpful first step, but we encourage people to seek professional assistance in dealing with the many difficult issues which can arise when a marriage or conjugal relationship ends.”

Yesterday, I heard a rumor that my colleague, Tracy, had found something exciting. Was it a secret librarians-only lounge on the top floor?  A forgotten $100 tucked in a library book? An orphaned raccoon kit that we could raise as an office mascot? I wandered over to her office to find out.

It was the Department of Justice ‘s Law Website.

Being new to the library, and law librarianship in general, I initially didn’t understand Tracy’s enthusiasm. But I do understand that part of being an information professional involves passions that most people don’t understand. (I’ve been known to squeal with girlish glee at a well-designed interface, but I digress). 

So I had Tracy walk me through the changes:

• The website now offers point-in-time access to consolidated Acts and regulations of Canada. Want to know how the Aeronautics Act read in February of 2005? Now you can. At this point, the point-in-time access only goes back to 2003 or 2002
• The annual Statute volumes are also available from 2001- 2011, which means that Acts that amend other Acts will now be much easier to find (since they don’t appear in consolidated versions)
• There is a table of Private Acts from 1867-2010 (again, something that usually only appears in annual Statute volumes)
• Acts now come with links to amendments not in force and related provisions
• Provisions that are not yet in force are shaded for quick identification
  There is a complete consolidation of the Constitution Act, including all amendments made between 1867 and 1982
• And of course, as of June 2009, all the consolidated Acts and regulations on http://laws.justice.gc.ca/eng/ are considered official. So not only can you FIND all this information, but you can USE it too

By the end of this rundown, Tracy was spinning in her office chair. Nothing pleases a librarian more than accessible information presented in a usable way.  I wasn’t quite as giddy, but I can appreciate that having free access to previous years official legislation will make my job much easier.  And if you’ve read this far, it’s probably applicable to your life as well.