Impact of Globalization on International and Foreign Law Information

Claire Germain, Law Librarian and Professor of Law at Cornell University, was at the annual conference of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries in Ottawa that I attended earlier this week.

I was curious and did a search on her name. I discovered one of her recent papers from the Cornell Legal Studies Research Paper Series on the site of the Social Science Research Network: Legal Information Management in a Global and Digital Age: Revolution and Tradition

"This article presents an overview of the public policy issues surrounding digital libraries, and describes some current trends, such as Web 2.0, the social network. It discusses the impact of globalization and the Internet on international and foreign law information, the free access to law movement and open access scholarship, and mass digitization projects, then turns to some concerns, focusing on preservation and long term access to born digital legal information and authentication of official digital legal information It finally discusses new roles for librarians, called upon to evaluate the quality of information; teach legal research methodology; and be advocates in information policy. Law librarians are encouraged to join professional associations and undergo continuous professional education. A recent development in the U.S.A., to add a legal research test on the bar exam, is of interest to the whole world, because it signifies the importance of a sound legal research training to the competent practice of law".