Canadian Lawyer

w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m A U G U S T 2 0 1 6 11 \ AT L A N T I C \ C E N T R A L \ P R A I R I E S \ W E S T REGIONAL WRAP-UP "L awyers love words, reading, and books . . . but they're not stepping across the thresholds of our law libraries." In what is both a lament and a stark statement of fact, Kristin Dangerfield, the chief executive director of the Manitoba Law Society, sums up what a lot of people see as the fundamental reason why law libraries are closing or dramatically cutting back in Western Canada and around the world. Many are simply not being used, or are being used in signifi- cantly different ways. An informal Canadian Lawyer survey of law libraries in the Prairie provinces and Northwest Territories found evi- dence of a general decline, but also a spark of hope. In Alberta, 32 mainly small court- house law libraries have been closed in the last decade-and-a-half. Now just 18 provincial law libraries remain and only 11 of those are open to the public. Late last year, a study of law libraries com- missioned by the province concluded: "Alberta Law Libraries [are] critical to the effective functioning of Alberta's justice system" and "more funding is required." However, the close to $5 million in sup- port that comes at various levels from the province, the Law Society of Alberta, and the Alberta Law Foundation continues to be reduced, and with Alberta's current weak economy, it is a situation unlikely to change any time soon. Saskatchewan's law libraries face pres- sure but also have some good news. The library at the University of Saskatchewan College of Law is under review along with other campus libraries as part of the university's Library Transformation Project. An initial report is expected some time near the end of this year. The College of Law's former dean, Beth Bil- son, has been on the steering committee of that review. She calls the law library "an elegant space" but says "there will be changes." However, Bilson rules out any suggestion the law library may be closed. As for the 16 law libraries run by the Law Foundation of Saskatchewan, things are looking up. Fourteen of the libraries are unstaffed and self-serve. They can be found in courthouses around the prov- ince. But full-service law libraries exist in Saskatoon and Regina and last year they experienced a remarkable 40-per-cent increase in reference inquiries from the profession, mostly by phone or e-mail. In addition, public inquiries jumped a remarkable 53 per cent through offers of on-site reference support and by run- ning a weekly family law clinic in which people learn how and where to get help. "It's about us hustling and getting the word out there," says Melanie Hodges Neufeld, director of legal resources for the Law Society of Saskatchewan. She is quick to point out that she is not trained as a librarian but as a lawyer. Another aspect of the library services that has built traffic is that, through the library, all members of the law society have desktop access to major legal research ser- vices right in their offices. They also have access to e-books and professional and academic journals. "Approximately half of our budget goes to electronic research ser- vices," says Hodges Neufeld. In Manitoba over the last decade and a half, all the province's satellite libraries in centres such as Brandon and Thompson have been closed. Only the law school library at the University of Manitoba and the aptly named Great Library in the courthouse in Winnipeg still remain open to the profession and, on a limited basis, to the public. The Great Library "is a wonder- ful room in a beautiful historic building," says CEO Dangerfield. "But it is very sel- dom used. It's a sad thing." The Great Library is funded by an arm of the law society. That support is up for review in 2019. On average, every practi- tioner in the province pays about $300 a year to keep it open. As the Law Society of Manitoba's administrative leader, Danger- field says the society's monies have to be used cost effectively and, as a consequence, "in 2019, [the Great Library] will look vast- ly different than it does today." In the Northwest Territories, the only significant law library is in the courthouse in Yellowknife. The territorial government, citing diminishing use and increasing costs, plans to stop financing the facility. Donna Allen, executive director of the Law Society of the Northwest Territories, says members have not been given a timeline to respond to the government, "but we antici- pate most of the responses will express unhappiness with the decision." Garth Niven has been the librarian at Winnipeg's Great Library since the 1970s. He loves books and libraries and is passionate about keeping them open. He argues that counting the people who actually enter the library is using "the wrong metric." He says: "The business we do is much less physical and much more electronic." He also points out that even the best commercial case law search engines do not go back more than a few decades. It's a problem also identified in the Alberta Law Libraries Review. That means a vast amount of legal knowledge is unavailable to researchers who depend solely on their laptops. — GEOFF ELLWAND writerlaw@gmail.com Kristin Dangerfield, chief executive officer of the Law Society of Manitoba. P R A I R I E S The rise, fall, and (maybe) rise again of the law library

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