Type: Law Library

Knight, F. Tim

F. Tim Knight was appointed Associate Librarian at the Osgoode Hall Law School Library in 2006. Prior to that he was the Cataloguing Team Leader at the Law Society of Ontario (formerly the Law Society of Upper Canada).

As Head of Technical Services he oversees library acquisition, cataloguing and electronic resources processing. He also oversees the ongoing  development and implementation of the Osgoode Digital Commons (ODC).

Tim has been actively involved with the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL/ACBD) for many years and is the editor of the KF Classification Modified for Use in Canadian and Common Law Law Libraries (aka KF Modified) the classification scheme used at the Osgoode Law Library and in law libraries across Canada. He is also an occasional contributor to Slaw: Canada’s Online Legal Magazine.

Tim also represents CALL/ACBD on the Canadian Federation of Library Associations’ Indigenous Matters Committee (IMC). The IMC launched the First Nations, Métis, Inuit Indigenous Ontology (FMIIO) in June of 2019 and continues to respond to the recommendations in the CFLA Truth and Reconciliation Report and Recommendations (2017).

Research interests: metadata; classification; subject analysis; Indigenous worldviews; linked data; machine learning; music composition

Selected presentations:

“Worldviews, Term Circles, Linked Data”
Ontario Library Association Superconference, Toronto, Ontario, January 2020.

“Words and Worldviews: Decolonizing Description”
Canadian Association of Law Libraries, Edmonton, Alberta, May 2019.

“Osgoode Digital Commons: Digital Repository Success Stories”
Canadian Association of Law Libraries webinar, April 19, 2018.

“What About Classification Bias?: Channeling Sandy Berman”
Canadian Association of Professional Academic Librarians, Toronto, Ontario, May 2017.

“Linked Data and Canadian Legal Resources”
CanLII Law, Government and Open Data Conference and Hackathon, University of Ottawa, 2013

Selected publications:

See also: Librarian Publications and Presentations on ODC.

Articles

“Break On Through to the Other Side: The Library and Linked Data
TALL (Toronto Association of Law Libraries) Quarterly, v. 30, no. 1 (Spring 2011)

“Resource Description and Access: From AACR to RDA“,
Canadian Law Library Review, v. 36, no. 1 (2011)

“KF Modified and the Classification of Canadian Common Law“,
Canadian Law Library Review, v. 34, no. 5 (Winter 2009)

Book Reviews

Review. “Flawed Precedent: The St. Catherine’s Case and Aboriginal Title,”
Canadian Law Library Review, v. 45, no. 2 (2020).

Review. “Earth Jurisprudence: Private Property and the Environment,”
Canadian Law Library Review, v. 41, no. 1 (2016).

Review. “Visualizing Law in the Age of the Digital Baroque: Arabesques and Entanglements. By Richard K. Sherwin.,”
Canadian Law Library Review, v. 38, no. 3/4 (2013)

Review. “Who Owns the Moon?: Extraterrestrial Aspects of Land and Mineral Resources Ownership. By Virgiliu Pop.,”
Canadian Law Library Review, v. 37, no. 2 (2012)

Halévy, Balfour

LLB (London), MCL (Tulane), MSLS (Columbia), of the Middle Temple and the Bar of Ontario
Balfour Halevy, professor emeritus and retired law librarian at York University, has significantly influenced North American and particularly Canadian law librarianship. Under his leadership, Osgoode’s law library was the first to develop the academic law library Acquisitions Program, which later became the Virtual Academic Law Library Project.

Ginsberg, Judy

Francis, Michele

Dina, Yemisi

Yemisi Dina joined the Osgoode Hall Law School Library as Associate Librarian and Head of Public Services in June 2006. She was formerly Manager of Adult Services at the Central Library of the Richmond Hill Public Library. Prior to this, Yemisi was Law Librarian at the College of the Bahamas/University of the West Indies LLB Program 2001 to 2005 where she helped establish a law library for the program. She worked briefly as Principal Librarian at the newly decentralized Lagos Campus of the Nigerian Law School, Council of Legal Education. She started her career in 1995 as Law Librarian at the Adeola Odutola Law Library, University of Ibadan, Nigeria.

Dina was Acting Chief Law Librarian, Osgoode Hall Law School Library from May 1, 2007 to February 29, 2008.  She later served as Interim Chief Law Librarian from November 2017 to May 2019 when she was appointed Chief Law Librarian.

Her areas of interest and specialization include law librarianship; information technology and its application to the delivery of information services; legal research methods; women’s studies; foreign, comparative and international law. She teaches library research in the first-year Legal Process course and an upper year seminar Foreign, Comparative and International Law Legal Research.

Dina is widely published. She is active in professional law library organizations at both the national and international levels. Yemisi was elected President of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries/L’Association Canadienne des Bibliothèques des Droit 2023-2024.

Publications

Online

Research Guides

Davis, John N.

Professor John Davis joined the Osgoode faculty in 2000, and teaches Intensive Legal Research and Writing.  He is a co-author of the Legal Research Handbook, 5th ed. (2003), and the author of “The Digital Storage, Retrieval and Transmission of Case Reports in Canada: A Brief History”, in Law Reporting and Legal Publishing in Canada: A History (1997).  He was the Law Librarian from 2000 to 2005.  From 1987 to 2000, he was an Associate Professor and the Law Librarian at the University of Victoria.  From 1981 to 1987, he was the reference librarian and a sessional lecturer at the University of Manitoba.  He also practised law for a time in Cayuga, Ontario.  His pre-law studies were in computer science.  Professor Davis’ research interests include conveyancing law; the law of remedies, legal, constitutional, and first nations history; administrative law; legal language and interpretation; information technology law; and copyright.

Research Interests: Public Law