It's the last week of exams before the New Year holiday break at Osgoode. The students are stressed. We have seen them doing jumping jacks in the group study rooms. So we weren't so surprised when we discovered this expression of student anxiety while closing the library last night. What can it mean? I put […]
General News
BC Gazette Part II Now Available Online and Free of Charge
The British Columbia Gazette Part II is now available online and free of charge on the BC Laws website. The electronic version of the Gazette Part II has the complete text of all new, repealed and amended regulations deposited under the Regulations Act, RSBC 1996, c 402, in a fully-searchable format. It includes all issues from October […]
World Treaty Library: Now Available on HeinOnline
Various efforts have been put forth over the past decades to create a universal collection of all the treaties of the world. Now for the first time, through the cooperation of Tufts University, Brill Publishing, the United Nations and various others, you will be able to search across all the major treaties in the world in one database: […]
Libraries Celebrate Open Access Week with screening of "The Internet’s Own Boy"
York University Libraries will celebrate International Open Access Week from Oct. 20 to 26. Open Access Week is a global campaign that promotes open access as an ideal for the dissemination of scholarship and research. On Oct. 24, to reflect this year’s theme “Generation Open,” the libraries will host a movie screening and talk by Carys Craig, […]
‘Road to Justice’ Exhibit in Osgoode Library Examines Historical Discriminatory Treatment of Immigrants in Canada
Road to Justice, a new exhibit which opens today in the Osgoode Library, documents the historical discriminatory treatment of Chinese Canadians and other immigrants of colour in Canada, the communities’ triumph over racism and the lessons Canadians can learn from history. The exhibit will be on display in the library until Friday, October 3, during […]
A Bounty of Bookplates
The Osgoode Library has purchased a modest collection of twenty-eight bookplates of various Canadian legal personages. These bookplates are of interest for biographical, bibliographical and professional reasons, and are also sure to be of interest to Game of Thrones fans for their assortment of family sigils and words, or in heraldic parlance, charges and mottoes. […]
The Lawes Resolution of Women’s Rights, or The Woman’s Lawyer (1632)
The Balfour Halevy Special Collections has acquired an exciting new item, The Lawes Resolution of Women’s Rights, also known as The Woman’s Lawyer. Why is this exciting? The Woman’s Lawyer is the earliest work in English devoted to laws relating exclusively to women. Some particular topics include the age of consent, dower, hermaphrodites, polygamy, wooing, […]
A new year is here again...
After a winter that would have caused even the Abominable Snowman to consider decamping to Hawaii, it is safe to say that we were all looking forward to three or four months of warm weather. Well, it's the end of August and - apart from a few bracing blasts of heat - we're still waiting. […]
Alexander Buchanan (1798-1852) and His Books: Part 2: Early Canadian Legal Education
In my previous post, I talked about Alexander Buchanan, his place in Canadian history, and his library. In this post, I'd like to talk about one specific book from Buchanan's collection, it's special place in Osgoode's Balfour Halévy Special Collections library. Also, I'd like to discuss a singular and exceptional document from Buchanan's hand and […]
Alexander Buchanan (1798-1851) and His Books: Part 1
It may simply be an instance of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, but it seems like everywhere I turn in our rare book room I run into vestiges of Alexander Buchanan. As a reasonably important historical figure, it's not surprising to see his name pop up here and there every now and then, but this barrage of […]