Legal Research

Some Canadian Law Books on Google

By Simon Fodden

I’ve done a quick search of Google Books (”Canada” + “law”)(”canadian” + “law”) and have created a library of some of the resulting material. I chose books published in this century that had a limited preview available and came up with 57 volumes. As you’ll know, I’m sure, Google Books has four degrees of accessibility online: no preview available, snippet view, limited preview and full preview. Those in the last category tended to be the oldest material, typically published in the 19th century.

The books I’ve identified have what I believe is a substantial proportion of their text readable and searchable online; and many have a table of contents or an index that is hotlinked to the text.

You’ll find an eclectic mix: some practioner books; some scholarly tomes; some teaching materials for law school, undergraduate study or high school; and some books of general interest.

I’m working on an easy way to move the “collection” over to a site that’s not personal to me and that all of us can add to, ideally not one locked within Google so that books available online outside Google Books can be added to the library. (At the moment I have an xml file that Google uses for export, and I’m examining it like an anthropologist looking at a foreign object. If anyone has a suggestion, I’d be most grateful.)

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on January 28, 2009 (boomark / email).