Welcome back to a new school year!

We, at the Bora Laskin Law Library, do hope that you and your families are bearing up during these difficult and strange times. Although Library staff have returned to work, it is in a limited, part-time, and staggered basis in order to do those things we cannot do remotely. During our shifts in the Library, our priority is staff safety. For the most part we continue to work from home but are available as normal if you have any enquiries, needs or concerns.

Please see here https://library.law.utoronto.ca/about-library/library-staff-directory for who we are and how you can reach us.

During the fall term things will be a little bit different. 

Library Hours:

The Library will operate at reduced hours for the fall term 

Monday-Thursday              9:00 AM – 9:00 PM

Friday                                   9:00 AM – 5:00 PM

Saturday                              10:00 AM – 6:00 PM

Sunday                                 12:00 PM – 4:00 PM

The Print Collection:

All stacks in the library including the short-term loan collection are closed to users (including faculty). This is due to two important reasons. First, to ensure that books are not contaminated by improper handling. Once touched, a book needs to be quarantined for 4 days. Second, the University of Toronto has negotiated an Emergency Temporary Access Service (ETAS) with HathiTrust. This means that during the U of T library closure due to COVID-19, current students and faculty can access digitized versions of the library’s in-copyright print books that have been deposited in the HathiTrust Digital Library.

The HathiTrust ETAS access has been confirmed until December 2020, provided that all of our libraries continue to meet specific requirements, namely that: 

  • All library stacks in the University of Toronto library system must remain closed to users
  • All libraries in the University of Toronto library system must limit loans of print materials to curbside pickup only, and limit loans to items that are not in the HathiTrust ETAS collection. 

Access to the Law Library print collection via infoEXPRESS:

Faculty can request Law Library books via InfoEXPRESS (law.infoexpress@utoronto.ca). Library staff will retrieve and deliver print material from the stacks. For print-only course reserves and short-term loan items, library staff will endeavour to scan and deliver portions to the extent permitted by copyright law and available resources upon request.

Access to the UTL print collection:

To retrieve print materials from other UofT libraries the Robarts Library has implemented a Curbside Pickup Service. See link below for details: 

https://onesearch.library.utoronto.ca/news/curbside-pickup-now-includes-gerstein-and-downsview-books-and-technology-access-services 

Reference and Research support:

Law Librarians are available to provide reference and research support remotely. We will not be doing face-to-face consultations. Please see the staff directory (https://library.law.utoronto.ca/about-library/library-staff-directory) for contact info.

Electronic Resources and eBooks:

The Law Library subscribes to a significant number of electronic resources (see: https://library.law.utoronto.ca/electronic-library). In addition to these databases, we have purchased access to a large number of eBooks published by Irwin Law, Edward Elgar, LexisNexis, Thomson Reuters and recently acquired access to approximately 60 titles from the Emond Publishing Casebook collection. If there are eBooks that you need for your teaching or research please let us know (law.ref@utoronto.ca) and we will endeavour to acquire access.

That’s our news for now. As we progress through term we will continue to provide details and updates.