If you require materials from the Law Library, Place a Hold via the Library Catalogue. Your materials will be available for pickup at the library of your choice.

You can request reference assistance via email.

If you need help with in-depth research or want to book an appointment with a librarian, please fill out the form here.

You can also obtain general Library information using our chat service

For all other questions, please contact the Rutherford Library Service Desk at (780) 492-5791.

Note: as of May 1st the Law Library is swipe card access only. However, you can still borrow these videos by finding them in the online catalogue and using the Place Hold function to have them taken to the library of your choice for pickup.

1. Battle for Brooklyn
HT 177 N5 B388 2011

‘Battle for Brooklyn’ follows the story of reluctant activist Daniel Goldstein as he struggles to save his home and community from being demolished to make way for the densest real estate development in U.S. history.

2. Bugs, bones & botany : the science of crime
QH 313.5 F67 B842 2010

This documentary delves into the realities of crime science and introduces some unexpected heroes on the forensic scene. Bugs, plants, bones are some of nature’s best detectives.

3. A chemical reaction : the story of a true green revolution
RA 1270 P4 C49 2009

Much of Canada has spoken and many lawn and garden pesticides are now banned in most of the nation. “A Chemical Reaction” examines how Hudson, Quebec, became the first town in North America to eliminate these products and how its battle all the way to the Canadian Supreme Court inspired activists everywhere — yet some towns and provinces are still holding out.

4. Eyes on the fries : young workers in the service economy
HD 6273 E94 2004

Examines the rise of the low wage service sector and what it means for a generation of young Americans whose lives depend on it.

5. How to start a revolution
HM 1281 H69 2011

Nobel Peace Prize nominee Gene Sharp is one of the globe’s greatest thinkers on nonviolent revolutions. His work over the last 50 years has been groundbreaking.

6. Secure freedom
KF 9625 S43 2006

A handful of men are now held under Security Certificates, a loophole in immigration law that allows indefinite detention without charge or trial. While the government argues for their deportation to Middle Eastern countries where they’ll likely be tortured, the detainees are forced to wait for years in temporary holding cells.

Shocked to learn this is happening in Canada, Alexandre Trudeau investigates the shadowy law, first visiting detainee Hassan Almrei in prison.

7. Sin Pais (Without Country)
F 869 S39 G827 2010

In 1992, Sam and Elida Mejia left Guatemala during a violent civil war and brought their one-year old son, Gilbert, to California. The Mejia’s settled in the Bay Area, and for the past 17 years they have worked multiple jobs to support their family, paid their taxes, and saved enough to buy a home. They had two more children, Helen and Dulce, who are both U.S. citizens. Two years ago, immigration agents stormed the Mejia’s house looking for someone who didn’t live there. Sam, Elida, and Gilbert were all undocumented and became deeply entangled in the U.S. immigration system.

8. Untangling the Mind : the legacy of Dr. Heinz Lehmann
RC 438.6 L43 U58 1999

When Montreal psychiatrist, Dr. Heinz Lehmann launched his medical career in the 1930s, psychiatric hospitals were, in Lehmann’s own words, “Snake Pits.” Naked inmates lay in their own excrement. Screams and cries emanated from locked isolation wards. Orderlies wrestled violent patients into straightjackets. Lehmann refused to accept these conditions. “Untangling the Mind: The Legacy of Dr. Heinz Lehmann” tells the poignant story of the man who transformed North American asylums into the therapeutic environments they are today.

9.Wegmans cruelty
HV 4765 N7 W44 2005

Wegmans Cruelty is a half hour documentary produced by a small investigative team from the organization Compassionate Consumers. Organization members contacted Wegmans Food Markets to try to hold some meaningful dialogue about the conditions at Wegmans Egg Farm, and were then misled and dismissed by Wegmans representatives. The team set out to capture actual footage inside the farm and create a film based on their experience.

10. Wiebo’s War
TD 195 G3 W54 2012

Wiebo’s War is a feature documentary that tells the story of a man’s epic battle with the oil and gas industry. In the 1990s, natural gas wells were drilled near the home of Reverend Wiebo Ludwig and his clan in Alberta. Soon after, livestock began to die, and the Christian community started experiencing health problems, including a series of miscarriages. After 5 years of being ignored by the oil and gas industry, Ludwig decided to fight for his land and his family’s survival.

The Faculty of Law will determine who, in addition to faculty members and graduate students, should have swipe card access to the Library.

Reference services will continue to be available by e-mail, or in the Law Library by appointment, but otherwise will be physically re-located to the Rutherford Humanities and Social Sciences Library. A portion of the reference collection will also be moved to the Rutherford Library.

Library users with swipe card access will be able to sign books out from the collection using the self-check circulation machine. Other library patrons who want to borrow an item from the Law Library’s collection will be able to request that the item be brought to another Library location for pick-up.

The Law Library will reopen in September as a “Learning Commons”, with limited services available during the fall and winter terms (September 2013 through April 2014). Reference services will remain based in the Rutherford Library.

Thanks to everyone (faculty, staff, students and externals) who have made this a wonderful place to work,
Law Library Staff

Monday – Friday, 8 am – midnight
Saturday – Sunday, 11 am – midnight

The Library will close at 5 pm on Tuesday, April 30th.

It will then be swipe card access only for May through August, reopening in the fall as a ‘learning commons’.

1. Al Rashid: the story of Canada’s first mosque
BP 187.65 C22 E363 2010

A historical symbol for peaceful co-existence, Canada’s first mosque is a living testament to the faith, tolerance and community spirit of Edmonton’s Muslims.

2. Be fruitful & multiply
HQ 1172 B44 2005

The most important biblical commandment in the Jewish Ultra-Orthodox community is “Be Fruitful and Multiply”. The man is commanded to procreate, but it is the woman who is the instrument for fulfilling this purpose. This film provides a look into the life of the Ultra-Orthodox woman.

3. Healing at Lac Ste Anne
BX 2321 L32 H43 2008

Every July, over 40,000 Aboriginal people journey to Lac Ste Anne in northern Alberta.
It’s the largest Native pilgrimage in North America, and it’s over a century old.
Recent lawsuits over residential school scandals weigh on the Oblate missionaries who own the sacred site.
The religious order may go bankrupt and lose the site just when its healing powers are most needed.
This documentary is a campground tapestry of colourful characters and Catholic and Native faith, amidst the hope to heal old wounds.

4. In good conscience : Sister Jeannine Gramick’s journey of faith
BX 1795 H66 I5 2006

In Barbara Rick’s acclaimed documentary, IN GOOD CONSCIENCE, a most unlikely and very funny rebel — an American nun — finds
herself at the center of a human rights storm with leaders of one of the world’s most revered institutions, the Roman Catholic Church.
The film chronicles the true story of Sister Jeannine Gramick, who is defying a Vatican edict that she shut down her compassionate
ministry to gay and lesbian Catholics, and silence herself permanently on the subject of homosexuality.

5. In the Name of God: Holy Word, Holy War
HV 6431 I624 2003

By detailing key incidents ranging from the Dawson’s Field hijackings to the Luxor massacre, this program charts the ever-widening holy war that is pitting Islamists against Zionists and the Arab world against the West.

6. Inside Islam : what a billion Muslims really think
BP 52 I57 2010

Gallup researchers began by asking the questions on every American’s mind.
Focusing on the issues of Gender Justice, Terrorism, and Democracy, the film presents this remarkable data deftly,
showing how it challenges the popular notion that Muslims and the West are on a collision course.
Like the research, the film highlights a shared relationship that is based on facts, not fear.

7. Jesus Politics : the Bible and the Ballot
BL 65 P7 J47 2008

JESUS POLITICS explores themes including the social role of the church in the African-American community,
the religious rhetoric of the candidates and their sometimes controversial associations with religious leaders,
how moral issues such as abortion became political weapons, and how biblical interpretation is used to validate political beliefs.

8. Kansas vs Darwin
QH 362 K36 2008

Even before they took place, the 2005 Kansas school board hearings on evolution were recognized as a pivotal battle in America’s ongoing war
over teaching evolution in the public schools. Kansas vs. Darwin reveals the fascinating and sometimes baffling personalities behind the spectacle,
with exclusive footage of the hearings and revealing, in-depth interviews with the major figures on both sides.

9. The Lord is not on trial here today
KF 4162 L67 2010

The story of Vashti McCollum, a young housewife from central Illinois who filed a lawsuit that led to the U.S. Supreme Court decision establishing the separation of church and state in public schools.

10. Momentum, 2004-2005. Smudge
E 98 W8 M66 2005

Christians have cathedrals. Muslims their mosques. For Native Canadians used to praying in natural settings, all the world is a sacred space.
But the props of Aboriginal spirituality – drums, chants and smouldering sweet grass – can draw unwanted attention in the city.
Smudge witnesses how a small group of aboriginal women celebrate their rights to worship in the city – their way.

11. Religion and Euthanasia
R 726 R45 2003

The highly controversial topic of euthanasia is examined in this program through the eyes of several medical and religious experts.

12. Satya
BQ 6160 C62 S38 2005

Since the Chinese occupation of Tibet, more than one million Tibetans have been tortured, executed or starved to death for their role in
demonstrations against the Chinese occupation. Countless nuns have been imprisoned and tortured for shouting slogans, criticizing the Chinese state
in conversations with foreigners, possessing posters which call for Tibetan independence, or hoisting the Tibetan flag. The treatment they receive as political prisoners is brutal.
SATYA addresses the spiritual consequences of Chinese rule by registering the quiet outrage of teen-age nuns who have been forced by the Chinese to violate their Buddhist vows.

13. Untouchable?
DS 422 C3 U58 2000

Identified as outcasts or ‘untouchables’ whole families of dalit people exist in India effectively as bonded or slave laborers.

14. Women of the Wall
DS 109.32 W47 W66 2008

Feminism arrives at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, in the form of a women’s prayer group started in 1989.
Despite verbal and physical attack, these women continue fighting for the right to pray in this holy space,
thereby testing the limits of and expanding the interpretations of Judaism in Israel. In May 2000 the group once again made
international headlines when the Israeli Supreme Court ruled in their favor after an eleven year court case. This decision, however,
dismantled only the legal barrier to their struggle, and not the cultural or societal ones barring their freedom of spiritual expression.

Extended Exam hours will start on Friday, April 12th.

Article from Calgary Herald to sum up situation as of April 19

Here are links to articles in the Gateway, Edmonton Journal and the Globe & Mail that sum up the situation.

The University had already been tightening it’s belt. It announced closure of 2 bookstore outlets, including the outlet in Hub Mall where Law students bought their text books.

Links to watch:
Change@UAlberta link for more information on how the U of A is responding.

Arts Squared

Coalition for Action on Postsecondary Education CAPSE

Whither the U of A?

Links to &/or about past events:

Webcast of Campus Forum on Wednesday, March 13

Webcast of President’s Forum on Friday, April 19

Edmonton Journal story of Friday, March 15th Post-secondary education march to the Legislature

Here is where previous CIPS (Comprehensive Institutional plans) are posted:
http://bit.ly/ZJyYLl (on the Provost’s site). The 2013 Comprehensive Institutional Plan will need to be revised and is due to the ministry at the end of May. New drafts will be online at some point as it goes through the governance approval process.

Draft letter of expectation received

Although staff have enjoyed the extra contact with patrons, we know that it has sometimes been frustrating for you. Especially when all you wanted to do was sign out a book, and you had to wait in line with the patrons who needed quick reference or guest CCIDs or whatever.

Once again, thanks for your patience.

1. Annie Pootoogook
NC 143 P66 A56 2006

This half-hour documentary is an intimate portrait of Cape Dorset artist Annie Pootoogook. We come to know her as a woman, a third generation Inuit artist and as a contemporary artist, grounded in the present.

2. Beate Klarsfeld : Bringing Nazi War Criminals to Justice
D 810 J4 B43 2006

Neither Jewish nor a lawyer, Beate Klarsfeld is nonetheless one of the most effective and tireless pursuers of Nazi war criminals. In this program, the woman who brought Klaus Barbie, among others, to justice, describes her work in documenting, tracking down, and punishing those who planned and ordered the extermination of Jews during the Holocaust.

3. Clara Lemlich : a strike leader’s diary
HQ 1413 L46 C53 2004

In her burning desire to get an education Lemlich read widely and organized a study group to discuss women’s problems. Her success as an organizer, which included numerous arrests and beatings by strikebreakers, eventually led to her election to the executive board of the International Ladies Garment Workers’ Union.

4. Erin Brockovich
PN 1995.9 S6 E75 2006

An unemployed single mother becomes a legal assistant and almost single-handedly brings down a California power company accused of polluting a city’s water supply.

5. Grace Hartman : the first woman to lead a major union in Canada
(you need to scroll down to find write-up when you click on link)
HD 8107 H37 G72 2000z

Grace was jailed for contempt of court for not ordering striking Ontario C.U.P.E. hospital workers back to work. This video explores Graces involvement in this strike and her lifelong commitment and struggle to ensure worker’s interests.

6. Miss Margaret
RG 962 E98 M57 2009

Once there were thousands of licensed Granny Midwives throughout the South. Now there are none. Miss Margaret successfully attended over 3,500 home births without a single maternal death, worked a farm like a man and triumphed over the advesities of Jim Crow, poverty, lack of education and the slavery of sharecropping.

7. Patsy Mink : ahead of the majority
E 840.8 M554 P38 2008

Mink was an Asian American woman who fought racism and sexism while redefining US politics. Her tumultuous, often lonely political journey reveals what can be at stake for female politicians that defy expectations, push limits and adhere to their principles.

8. Shirin Ebadi, a simple lawyer
KMH 110 I23 S29

This documentary profiles Iranian attorney Shirin Ebadi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her efforts for democracy and human rights, in particular the struggle for the rights of women and children.

9. Tillie Olsen: a heart in action
PS 3565 L93 Z7 T55 2007

This revelatory documentary is an inspiring homage to Tillie Lerner Olsen – a renegade, revolutionary, distinguished fiction and non-fiction writer, feminist, humanist, labor organizer and social activist. Politically active, class conscious, deeply joined to the world, Tillie countered the very core of American writing by immortalizing the lives of working class women and single mothers.

10. The Toughest Job in the World
KZ 1203 A2 T52 2000

This program profiles Chief Prosecutor Louise Arbour and the International War Crimes Tribunal during the Kosovo Crisis.

Rutherford, Cameron and Scott Libraries will be open from 11 am – 6 pm.