The future of law faculty libraries is certainly less encouraging than the past, judging from estimates by deans of the adequacy of library budgets for research. Certain faculty libraries mentioned administrative problems connected with their relationship to their university library that seriously hampered their level of service, especially their ability to acquire and process rapidly essential legal materials. Clearly, library administrative procedures ought to accommodate the particular needs of law faculties, preferably by delegating operational control to them
| Author(s): | Annette Demers, Yemisi Dina and Gian Medves |
| Source(s): | Canadian Legal Information Institute (www.canlii.org) |
| Licence: | This work is licenced under the CanLII user licence which includes the right of the User to make copies of the work for legal research purposes, in the practice of law or in the exercise of their legal rights. |
| Last modified: | 2025-07-28 |
| Citation: | Annette Demers, Yemisi Dina and Gian Medves, Trends in Canadian Academic Law Libraries: Report on the Reinvigorating Academic Law Library Standards Survey, Part Two, Canadian Legal Information Institute, 2025 CanLIIDocs 1745, <https://canlii.ca/t/7np09>, retrieved on 2025-07-31 |
Abstract
This article is the second article written by the authors about academic law librarianship in Canada. The first article is referenced as: Annette Demers, Yemisi Dina and Gian Medves, “Trends in Canadian Academic Law Libraries: Report on the Reinvigorating Academic Law Library Standards Survey, Part One”, 2025 CanLIIDocs 1371, <https://canlii.ca/t/7nndz>. We begin by explaining the impetus for this article. We explore the necessary components for success of a specialized profession generally and then detail selected results of the Reinvigorating Academic Law Library Standards which was conducted in winter 2023. We conclude this article with some general observations about the current trajectory of academic law librarianship in Canada, with an eye to our next article which will suggest relevant changes to academic law library standards in the future.
Executive Summary
Below, we present four main recommendations for improving the Canadian Academic Law Library Standards based on the findings of this report.
Academic Standards Recommendation #1
The academic standards should be amended to give prominence to the following principle: persons employed as academic law librarians should have sufficient legal education and experience be able to competently educate law students on core legal research skills required by the Federation Report.
Academic Standards Recommendation #2
To ensure that appropriate levels of legal research expertise are available to faculty of law users, the standards should include new language requiring that law faculty members have representation on hiring and tenure committees for the head of the law library and for the law librarians.
Academic Standards Recommendation #3
The section of the Academic Law Library Standards document pertaining to the director or head of the law library should be maintained. As the data will show, having a head of the law library is critical to ensuring sufficient communication channels between the faculty of law and the law library.
Academic Standards Recommendation #4
To ensure that law libraries provide appropriate levels of expertise, collections and services, the standards should include new language emphasizing the importance of maintaining some minimum reporting obligations to the Dean of Law. At minimum, law library administrators must be accountable for addressing the legal research and library resources elements of the Federation Report and of any other reporting requirements (e.g. IQAP). Having law librarians sit on Faculty Council is also desirable.
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