New BC Courthouse Library Database Coming Soon!
Today I had the opportunity to be a tester for a new database that the BC Courthouse Library will be unrolling in the (hopefully near) future. The A-Z Knowledgebase will contain “handy references and hard to find answers” for legal researchers in BC.
I am ridiculously excited about this new offering from the Courthouse Library: they already provide so many great services (eg., Unreported Decisions Index, BC Legal Literature Index, etc.), and this one will be no exception.
According to Mandy Ostick of BCCLS, the A-Z was “originally a private resource to help our staff answer our users’ questions”, but luckily, they’ve decided to make it available to the public on their website. The database has an interface similar to the aforementioned indexes and includes both search and browse capabilities.
Even in the small selection of records made available for the test phase, there was a lot of good stuff. One particularly nice feature is that the records often list contact organizations/agencies and have references to where the answer/information was found (eg., list of corresponding/related regulations, agency websites, library resources on that topic, etc.).
No word on a launch date, but I presume there will be adequate (and well-deserved) fanfare when the time comes. This database is sure to become another essential website for law libraries (actually, all libraries!) in BC.
Way to go, BCCLS!
P.S. What - did you think I didn’t notice? The A-Z Knowledgebase will also have an RSS feed for new items…jackpot!