October 6, 2011

Beyond Hope Library Conference June 2013

Clicklaw Wikibooks: A Law Library’s Experiment in Publishing, aka What Happens When a Wiki Meets a Book?

Janet Freeman

Overview

Courthouse Libraries BC programs to help the

public: LawMatters, Clicklaw, CLBC Reference

Clicklaw Wikibooks: why and how?

• Legal Help for British Columbians guide

• JP Boyd on Family Law

• People’s Law School titles

Questions and comments

Courthouse Libraries context

Four pillar approach to

meeting the public side of our

mission…

A website with plain

language legal info

Online resources that are

frequently updated and can be

printed

Helping public libraries provide

current legal information

CLBC website and legal

reference assistance

LawStartBC: How we help the

public find and use legal

information

Courthouse Libraries BC Community Outreach team:

Nancy Hannum and Janet Freeman of LawMatters,

Brenda Rose of Clicklaw, and Drew Jackson,

Director, Client Services.

Since 2008, LawMatters has

provided grants, recommended

titles for purchase, and training on

how to do legal reference.

LawMatters sponsors community

legal information forums at public

libraries.

www.bclawmatters.ca and

www.bclawmatters.blogspot.ca

clicklaw.bc.ca

30 courthouse branches in BC

in-depth law books & free use

of legal databases on public

access computers

assistance from law librarians

(in Vancouver and 6 regional

libraries or 1.800.665.2570)

website courthouselibrary.ca

features legal information

aimed at legal community

Or email:

librarian@courthouselibrary.ca

Questions from the public are up 70% in the last six years:

30% of total in 2007

43% of total in 2012

Rise in public’s use of

Importance of public legal information

―The law delivers too many ambulances at the bottom of cliffs

and not enough railings at the top.‖

The End of Lawyers? by Richard Susskind (London: Oxford University

Press, 2008)

October 6, 2011

Clicklaw WikibooksAn experiment in born-digital publishing

What is a wiki?

A wiki is a website that is easy to edit by

many people collaborating together.

The term wiki actually means "fast" or

"quick" in Hawaiian – the idea is that

updates can be made very quickly.

Wikipedia is the leading example of a wiki.

But wikis can be used for many purposes

that support collaboration – conference

websites, intranets, communities of

practice, etc.

libsuccess.org

The plain language guide ―Legal

Help for British Columbians‖ was

such a nice starting point for 30

common legal problems that we got

copies for all public libraries in BC

Challenges

Within a year, the Legal Help for British Columbians

guide needed updating

We put a PDF of the guide online, but it was

not very findable or usable online - at 75 pages, not

easily searchable, external links not practical

Yet the print continued to be highly valued in

library settings where computer literacy can be a

major issue

But as good as the Legal Help Guide

was, there were some challenges

Why a Wikibook?

We wanted a collaborative authoring

environment to enable updating by

many contributors

We wanted an affordable tool:

Mediawiki is an open source platform

We wanted it to be easy for users: As it

looks & feels like Wikipedia, the end user

experience is familiar

We wanted online and print versions:

A wikibook is born-digital but can also

produce print from the same source

We decided to turn

the Legal Help Guide

into a ―wikibook‖,

using the Mediawiki

platform that

powers Wikipedia

We used a wiki

platform to put the

Guide online, opening

up access to it

We recruited a dozen

lawyers and other

subject matter

experts to be

contributors &

reviewers

Familiar experience

for end users

Various ways to

navigate within the

Guide, including

searching

External links to key

resources

Integration with

Clicklaw HelpMap

where available

Currency information

Wiki pages can be updated

immediately to reflect

changes to the law. The bottom of each

page indicates

currency.

Wiki can be updated

collaboratively over the

Internet by contributors

Book creator enables us to

assemble wiki pages into a

single PDF file that can

then be printed

Creative Commons

Free, easy-to-use

copyright licenses that

provide a simple,

standardized way to give

the public permission to

share and use your

creative work — on

conditions of your

choice.

NEW

The Family Law Context

38% of all Canadian marriages end in divorce

70,000 divorce orders annually

Only 1% proceeds to an actual trial

Increase in self-represented litigants: (Ontario)

• 46% (1998-2003)

• 54% (2009-2010)

Causal relationship between unresolved legal

problems and increased health, social welfare

and economic problems.

Excerpts from Final Report of the Family Justice Working Group,

April 2013

The Family Law Context

In BC Provincial Court family matters:*

A startling 90 to 95% are unrepresented by a lawyer

* An Agenda for Justice, presented by the Canadian Bar Association, BC Branch February 2013

** The National Self-­Represented Litigants Project: Identifying and Meeting the Needs of

Self-­Represented Litigants, May 2013.

In BC Supreme Court generally :**

self- representation was running at 35% in 2012

Before JP Boyd on Family Law…

… there was www.bcfamilylawresource.com:

The sole work of family lawyer John-Paul Boyd

over more than 10 years

Plain spoken, and often humorous, approach to

public legal information

5,000 visitors per week

Many hundreds of static pages, sample forms,

―How-Do I?‖ pages

JP Boyd on Family Law…

Updated for the new Family Law Act

Interlinked with other quality sources (Legal

Services Society, Canadian Bar Association, etc.)

Fully searchable

Exportable for PDF, printing and libraries —

still 630 pages when printed!

15 senior family lawyer editors, plus as many

junior lawyers — cross-mentoring tech-savvy

juniors and law-savvy seniors

Multi-disciplinary Advisory Committee (lawyers

like JP Boyd and Megan Ellis QC, plus librarians

like Deb Thomas, Deputy Chief Librarian of

Burnaby Public Library, and others)

Helping other organizations publish Clicklaw Wikibooks

- David Lankes, The Atlas of New

Librarianship and Expect More: Demanding

Better Libraries For Today's Complex World

Next Steps:

Printing of updated 2013 Legal Help Guide

and JP Boyd on Family Law for public libraries

Investigating print-on-demand and e-pub

options

Supporting Peoples Law School and others in

experimenting with the wiki platform

Future wikibooks titles

Questions and Comments?