Is our law library an open resource for every member of the Osgoode community? Apparently not. Who would have thought that our law library was being used to store books that students are banned from reading! After a request for an accompanying instructor’s manual to Bruce Ziff’s first-year text: A Property Law Reader was made by a student this past week, the library bureaucracy responded in kind:
“I’m sorry, but we are unable to let you view the text. It is the author’s specific request that that this Instructor’s Manual not be made available to students…(f)or both professional and regulatory (copyright) reasons, we are obliged to respect the author’s request.”
Should students be so firmly denied access to resources that are directly related to their courses? Can there really be such serious state secrets contained within an instructor’s manual that students should be prevented from consulting it? It hardly seems appropriate that the law library should deny access to resources that will help students understand their course materials better. The library should reject any policy that restricts only certain members of the Osgoode community from examining its holdings. This is unfair and counterproductive to a fair and open institution of legal education.
– Chris Los