Law to 1900: A Bibliography Selected from the Catalogue of the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions

John D. Blackwell is the reference librarian and collections coordinator
of the Goldfarb Library at Brandeis University in Massachusetts.

Since its founding in 1978, the Canadian Institute for Historical
Microreproductions (CIHM) has provided an invaluable service to
researchers by reproducing and distributing over 70,000 pre–1920
Canadian monographs, pamphlets, ephemera, and serials. CIHM not only
maintains an online catalogue of its microfiche publications
(http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/cihm/cihmfm.htm), but also makes selected
full-text works freely available on the Web (http://www.canadiana.
org/).

For specialists working in various fields of research, CIHM publishes a
series of print catalogues on such diverse topics as women’s history,
economics, English-Canadian language and literature, French-Canadian
language and literature, genealogy and local history, medicine and
health, Native studies, political science, annuals, directories, and
periodicals.

Law to 1900, CIHM’s latest subject catalogue, lists more than 4000
historical titles on Canadian law and is arranged by CIHM series number.
Access is provided by title, name, and subject indexes; the last is
based on bilingual subject headings within each cataloguing record. An
innovative feature of Law to 1900 is its form index, which allows the
user to identify sources by type (e.g., bibliographies, biographies,
directories, law reports, pamphlets, speeches, and statutes). These
multiple access points make it much easier for the legal historian to
locate the full range of primary sources on a given topic.

Canadian legal history has come of age during the past two decades. The
Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History, founded in 1979, has played
a large role in this development by funding research and sponsoring a
major series of publications. However, CIHM’s herculean efforts in
making primary sources more readily accessible have also greatly
facilitated new work in the field.

This excellent bibliography with its sturdy library binding will find a
welcome place in reference collections wherever there is an interest in
Canadian Studies.