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Introduction
The Canadian Legal Information Institute, CanLII, has done what many online legal searchers wished for - established itself as a must-use site that has a comprehensive collection of Canadian legislation and case law. CanLII.org was conceived by the law societies of Canada, who put the resources together to design and maintain an ever-growing and free virtual library that is fast, easy to use and 100% accessible to anyone with internet access. This venture was undertaken through the Federation of Law Societies of Canada, to provide free legal information from the courts, government, and other institutions, to both lawyers and the public.
It is has been very exciting to be part of the development of CanLII. I have been involved since I first took the idea to the law societies and asked them to support the concept of a virtual law library. The timing was right, as the Great Library, of which I was the director, was being sued by the publishers for breach of copyright and the law societies were concerned that legal professionals were being restricted in the use of legal materials which they needed, either for court or for study purposes.
The database
The crucial day-to-day examination of Canada's primary legal materials is undertaken by law librarians, lawyers, law firms and judges. However, the organisation of the data, the mode of access and the character of search capabilities, the guarantee of authenticity, and the completeness of the information are not. The digital information required by the profession to ensure its competence is not truly 'in the digital library'. It is within the control of publishers, who provide portions of it at a substantial cost, and who make choices about what is important and what is not, and each publisher organises the information in ways which are advantageous for its specific business objectives. The copyright law suit clearly drew attention to this fact and was the impetus in securing the funding necessary for the development of the site.
CanLII's website is recognised as the largest web resource providing free access to legal documents from Canada's federal, provincial and territorial governments. It has become an extremely valuable resource for both legal practitioners and the public. CanLII's website is developed by, and continues to be...