Law Librarianship Commons^™

Informed By Joy: A Christian Librarian's Reflection On C.S. Lewis, David H. Michels

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

In Surprised by Joy C. S. Lewis offers us his account of his conversion to Christianity. Using his experiences of joy as “signposts,” he leads us through his early life up to his conversion at age thirty-one. I reflect on Lewis’s account as a librarian, researcher, and fellow Christian, considering his information world and the people who aided and hindered him on his faith journey. I conclude with some thoughts on his and my own conversion, as both unique yet shared experiences within the Christian tradition.

"Real joy seems to me almost as unlike security or prosperity as it is …

Canadian Legal Professionals' Information Activities: What Do They Do, And How Do They Tweet, Hannah Steeves

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The use of social media in professional settings has increased significantly over the past decade. This article presents the results of a statistical analysis performed on a sampling of Canadian legal professionals’ Twitter accounts between 2015 and 2016. A series of tweets were reviewed and subsequently categorized to determine the most common types of information activities occurring on social media accounts, specifically Twitter, from legal professionals.

L’utilisation des médias sociaux dans les milieux professionnels a considérablement augmenté au cours de la dernière décennie. Cet article présente les résultats d’une analyse statistique réalisée sur un échantillon de comptes Twitter de professionnels …

Sailing Through Law School: Assessing Legal Research Skills Within The Information Literacy Framework, David H. Michels

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

In this study I ask the question: Can standardized information literacy tests help assess and benchmark the learning of information skills by Canadian law students? This study replicates an earlier study that found that a standardized test of information literacy competencies, SAILS, was not an effective measure of law student information literacy levels. By applying the same test under similar conditions to another group of law students, I found that while the test did not measure legal research competencies, it was effective in measuring basic information literacy skills in law students with often surprising results. I argue that legal research …

The Changing Shape Of Legal Information, David H. Michels, Mark Lewis

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

As IT, Reference and Instruction librarians, we have experienced significant changes to the shape of legal information over the past five years. The changes are to both the very nature of legal information and how we perceive it. This can be illustrated by our use of the phrase "legal information". Depending on your age and life situation, the words "legal information" will have created specific images in your mind. These changes in perception challenge how we develop our programs of legal research instruction.