Presentation on Digitizing the World's Laws at IFLA 2010 Conference

The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) held its annual World Library and Information Congress last week in Gothenburg, Sweden.

The Aug. 12 conference session was about Law Libraries, Government Libraries and Government Information and Official Publications and included a presentation by Claire Germain of Cornell University on Digitizing the World’s Laws: Authentication and Preservation:

"Many countries now provide online access to statutes, codes, regulations, court decisions, and international agreements. The focus here is on official legal information coming from governments world-wide. To assess progress, in early 2010 I conducted an empirical survey of as many as possible of the 192 countries listed by the United Nations, mostly by going directly to the government websites of each country (...)"

"This first world snapshot shows much progress and the overall picture that emerges is very positive, showing world-wide evolution toward the availability of more information. However, because the digital medium is vulnerable to errors and tampering, it is of utmost importance to make digital legal information official and authentic. In addition, there are special concerns for the preservation of long term access to born digital content with no paper equivalent."