Legal Research – Know How, the blog of the Great Library

Extra! Extra! The Great Library has a new Research Guide for Self-Represented Litigants

Three years ago, the reference librarians here at the Great Library published a master list of organizations offering free or subsidized legal information and services in Toronto and around Ontario. Dubbed the Self-Represented Litigants Resource, it was designed to guide individuals encountering legal difficulties to affordable assistance, and to empower them to make informed decisions about their case. Since then, the resource has helped innumerable people do just that, and today we have the pleasure of announcing the new & improved online version of this tool: Resources for Self-Represented Litigants.

For the Love of Indexes!

Like many seasoned researchers, we at the Great Library are strong advocates of the use of indexes. A good index is like a GPS: you can get where you’re going without it but it’s probable that you’ll take several unnecessary twists and turns along the way. In this blog post we share some reasons why indexes still matter, why we love them, and most importantly, why they are not just another table of contents.

Finding “Unreported” Ontario Decisions: Unreported, but not Unretrievable?

Trying to find an Ontario case but can’t find any trace of it online? With the advent of online databases such as Lexis Advance Quicklaw, Westlaw Canada, and CanLII, one may have the impression that “everything is now online.” And while we now commonly refer to any decision not published online as “unreported,” even the term itself has changed in meaning (for an excellent review of the evolution of the term, look to the Law Society of Saskatchewan’s blog post “Unreported, You Say?”).

Nevertheless, finding caselaw that is not readily available is still a reality the legal researcher faces today, and if you can’t find it online or in any of the printed reporters, there are some steps you can follow to try and locate that elusive decision: