Adjunct faculty member Christa Bracci and law librarian Erica Friesen have written a new open-source resource for students: Legal Research Online: Information seeking in the digital environment (eCampus Ontario Open Library, 2024).

This textbook provides students of legal research with a comprehensive strategy for managing the ever-expanding volume of legal information available online. The authors offer guidance, practical frameworks, and clear explanations of optimal online research access points, tools, and techniques. Legal Research Online serves as a foundational resource for students and aims to enhance their proficiency in conducting legal research in the evolving digital landscape.

“The text grew out of my experience teaching Advanced Legal Research at Queen’s,” says Bracci, who also teaches legal skills. “The digital revolution has reshaped legal research. Students have increasingly come to rely on online resources and access points, a trend that was accelerated by the pandemic. This shift brings challenges and opportunities. For example, online legal resources evolve rapidly, but print textbooks often lag behind these changes. Our open educational resource (OER) addresses issues like this in two ways. It provides up-to-date, adaptable content that fosters multiple literacies – information, database, technological, and AI – to better prepare students for managing legal information. And the OER format is easy to update as online resources evolve.”

Erica Friesen, Research and Instruction Librarian & Online Learning Specialist with the Lederman Law Library, says, “Legal research skills are more important than ever in a fast-changing online environment. This open textbook provides students with barrier-free access to the fundamentals for conducting effective legal research online. The open format also encourages students to foster an understanding of legal research as a skillset that requires continual development and refinement as they move through their law school experience and that they can then carry into legal practice.”

Download this free, open educational resource through the ecampus Ontario website.