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Title: A Thesaurus of Canadian Civil Justice Terminology Michael Lines Canadian Forum on Civil Justice, U o


1
A Thesaurus of Canadian Civil Justice
TerminologyMichael LinesCanadian Forum on
Civil Justice, U of A.
2
Two Research Projects
  • Foundation Research demonstrating the need for
    better access to this area of documentation (UofA
    funded)
  • Construction Research exploring how best to
    actually create a useful thesaurus (CALL funded)

3
The Need for a Thesaurus
  • Lit Review lots of scholarship on the civil
    justice systems in Canada and abroad, most of it
    using the term civil justice.
  • Examples of civil justice materials (practical
    and scholarly)
  • Jack I. H Jacob, The Fabric of English Civil
    Justice (London Stevens, 1987).
  • Thomas A. Cromwell, "Canada changing priorities"
    (1999) 20 The Justice System Journal 151.
  • Jean-Maurice Brisson, Donna Greschner Canadian
    Institute for the Administration of Justice,
    Public Perceptions of the Administration of
    Justice (Montréal Éditions Thémis, 1996).
  • Canadian Bar Association Task Force on Systems
    of Civil Justice, Report of the Canadian Bar
    Association Task Force on Systems of Civil
    Justice (Ottawa The Association, 1996).
  • Harry Woolf, Great Britain Lord Chancellor's
    Dept, Access to Justice Final Report (London
    England H.M.S.O, 1996).
  • Ontario et al., Civil Justice Review
    Supplemental and Final Report (Toronto Ontario
    Civil Justice Review, 1996).
  • Allan C Hutchinson, Access to Civil Justice
    (Toronto Carswell, 1990).
  • Jean-Maurice Brisson, Université de Montréal
    Faculté de droit, La Formation D'Un Droit Mixte
    L'Évolution De La Procédure Civile De 1774 à 1867
    (Montréal Éditions Thémis, 1986)
  • Jeff Leeuwenburg, Anne Wallace Australian
    Institute of Judicial Administration, Technology
    for Justice 2000 Report (Carlton South, Vic.
    Australian Institute of Judicial Administration,
    2001).

4
Access to the literature
  • Assessment of current subject access tools LC
    Classifications and LCSH do not use the term
    civil justice.
  • The topic is treated incompletely,
    inconsistently, and unsystematically.
  • Terminology differs between jurisdictions.

5
KE, etc.
  • There can only be one location for each item in a
    classification system, so we expect less than
    perfection in subject access.
  • Still, it is worth pointing out that law
    classifications focus on the substantive law, and
    LC particularly on administrative law.
  • In fact, reading the LC schedules shows that they
    are almost exclusively a classification for legal
    treatises, without a place for discussions of how
    the legal system works.
  • This is part of a general unwillingness in legal
    circles to seriously consider studying the
    systems of law from an empirical standpoint, in
    spite of Bentham, Pound, Weber, Galanter, Jacob,
    and Canadians Cromwell, Baar, and others.

6
  • So, work on justice systems are jammed into the
    corners of the classifications
  • KE 225-237, Trials
  • KE 330-372, Legal Profession
  • KE 429-430, Criticism, Law reform
  • KE 8200-8605, Courts. Procedure, including
  • Administration of justice
  • Court Organization and procedure
  • Civil procedure
  • Etc.
  • Something unified, like this, would be better
  • Justice systems
  • Civil justice systems
  • Judiciary
  • Legal profession
  • Court management
  • Legal process
  • Community resources
  • Law reform
  • Etc.

7
LCSH - the cataloguers view
8
LCSH - the cataloguers view
ADMISSIONS LAW AMPARO WRIT ARBITRATION AND
AWARD ATTACHMENT AND GARNISHMENT CLASS ACTIONS
CIVIL PROCEDURE CODE PLEADING COMPLAINTS CIVIL
PROCEDURE COMPROMISE LAW CONCILIATION CIVIL
PROCEDURE DEFENSE CIVIL PROCEDURE DIVORCE
SUITS EQUITY PLEADING AND PROCEDURE EXCEPTIONS
LAW EXECUTIONS LAW EXTRAORDINARY
REMEDIES INJUNCTIONS INTERVENTION CIVIL
PROCEDURE JOINDER OF ISSUE JUDGMENTS JUDICIAL
ASSISTANCE LAW AND FACT MATRIMONIAL ACTIONS NISI
PRIUS NON-CONTENTIOUS JURISDICTION PARTIES TO
ACTIONS PLEADING PREJUDICIAL ACTIONS PROBATE LAW
AND PRACTICE PROCESS PROVISIONAL
REMEDIES REMEDIES LAW SELF-INCRIMINATION SET-OFF
AND COUNTERCLAIM SMALL CLAIMS COURTS SUMMARY
PROCEEDINGS TIME LAW VENUE
9
Some anomalies
  • courts, verdicts and interrogatories appear
    in more than 1 location
  • Under civil procedure amparo writ and
    self-incrimination
  • In Civil procedure Attachment and Garnishment
    not under remedies law

10
LCSH the users view
The 4 main subject headings in use where civil
justice materials can be found Note Dead Bodies
(Law) 5 items, Practice of Law 0 items
11
  • 52,433 titles
  • 5835 subject headings in use
  • Law 4856 items
  • 2282 subject headings with a single item
  • Additional 1185 with 2 or 3 items

12
Top subject headings
Of the top 200 most-used subject headings in the
Weir library, we extracted these, which identify
civil law-related materials
13
Estimate of the Weir Civil Justice collection
  • At the Weir library, the civil justice collection
    is estimated at about 7,000 titles, or about 15
    of the collection.

14
Assessment of Canadian Collections
  • We asked experts to help us compile a
    representative sample of civil justice works,
    selecting for a variety of qualities, including
    importance, rarity, and publisher type.
  • We tested 11 important academic, court, law
    society, and parliamentary libraries for the 48
    titles.
  • We found that the libraries collected an average
    of 28 titles, or 58.

15
Assessment of Collections
  • The Weir library collected 77 of the titles.
    Since that collection is currently in the range
    of 7000 titles, we can estimate that Weir may
    need to collect an additional 3000 titles to
    become comprehensive.
  • Most law libraries could probably stand to gain
    several thousand civil justice titles, if they
    want to be close to comprehensive.
  • Due to the deficiencies in subject access via LC
    and other tools, this body of knowledge will
    require a new tool.

16
Why a Thesaurus?
  • A new LC subject heading for Civil Justice
    would be useful.
  • However, to provide access to collections of
    several thousand titles, more is needed.
  • Additionally, civil justice terminology differs
    between jurisdictions, which makes simple subject
    headings less than ideal.
  • A Thesaurus can meet this difficulty by
    collecting terms in use and providing preferred
    terms.

17
Example
  • the several provincial simplified proceedings
    regimes in place across Canada
  • Ontario simplified procedure
  • B.C. fast track litigation
  • Alberta streamlined procedure
  • Manitoba, expedited actions

18
  • How much of a problem is this? In our collection
    there are 4 monographs addressing this topic, as
    well 14 other publications, including reports,
    grey literature and periodical articles. I
    suspect we are missing a few.

Joseph F. Kenkel, William S. Chalmers, Small
claims and simplified procedure litigation,
Toronto, Butterworths 1998. E. Dennis Schmidt, A
Model for economic small and medium litigation in
provincial court, Canadian Association of
Provincial Court Judges 1995. Julie Vennard,
Patricia Morgan, Great Britain. Home Office.
Research and Planning Unit., Pre-trial delay
the implications of time limits, London, Her
Majesty's Stationery Office 1989. Léon Lorrain,
Précis de la procédure sommaire spéciale dans les
causes entre locateurs et locataires, Montréal,
A. Periard 1985.
19
Steps toward the Thesaurus
  • To identify the civil justice titles in a
    collection use an authoritative list derived
    from the Forums collection (about 20,000 works).
  • To mark them as civil justice related, a new LCSH
    heading is needed, and we have a chance to work
    with OCLC to include the heading in MARC records.
  • A Draft Thesaurus has been written
  • Ideas on how to offer the Thesaurus needed

20
Currently
  • Sources of terminology have been identified, but
    more may arise.
  • Identifying and evaluating appropriate technology
    options for the construction of the Thesaurus is
    underway.
  • We need to facilitate ongoing collaboration and
    discussion of the results in the legal research
    and law library communities we need partners.

21
Drafts and Tools
  • drafts of the full research results
  • to be supplied
  • draft of the Thesaurus
  • http//www.cfcj-fcjc.org/research-thesaurus-draftT
    hesaurus.htm
  • electronic bulletin board
  • http//www.cfcj-fcjc.org/thesaurus/
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