The Balfour Halévy Special Collections are at the heart of the library’s mandate to preserve and record the print record of Canadian law. The centrepiece is a near-comprehensive collection of Canadian legal materials published through 1900, including material published in France and relevant to the civil law tradition of Quebec. This core collection of legal Canadiana – the most complete anywhere – is complemented by a significant collection of early English, Irish and American law reports, statutes and law books. The collections also include early trials published through 1900, as well as some Canadian and English manuscripts, broadsides and ephemera.
Special Collections Slideshow
The Special Collections also include a collection of Osgoodiana, i.e., material produced at or about Osgoode Hall Law School (e.g., casebooks and theses) or by members of the Osgoode faculty.
The library’s Special Collections are named in honour of Balfour Halévy, founding law librarian of the Osgoode Hall Law School Library when it moved to York University from old Osgoode Hall on Queen Street in 1967. It is due to Halévy’s dedication and labour over 30 years as Chief Law Librarian and his vision to create at Osgoode Hall Law School a “national law library” for Canada that the special collections were conceived and developed.
The Balfour Halévy Special Collections are housed in the new, state-of-the-art facility named the Canada Law Book Rare Book Room in recognition of a gift of $1 million from Canada Law Book Inc., Canada’s oldest law publisher, founded in 1855. The Canada Law Book Rare Book Room is the centrepiece, both physically and spiritually, of the library.
All materials in the Balfour Halévy Special Collections are recorded in the library’s online catalogue. Materials must be requested at the Circulation Desk and will be retrieved within one hour. Special Collections materials may be used in the rare book room only. Photocopying or other types of reproduction by borrowers is not permitted; however, arrangements can be made through the library staff for any necessary copying. Guidelines for for using materials from the Balfour Halévy Special Collections are available here.