York's retired law librarian receives Guthrie Award

By Susan Scott

Balfour Halévy, 1999 Guthrie Award recipient

Balfour Halévy, professor emeritus and retired law librarian at York, has received the 1999 Guthrie Award from the Law Foundation of Ontario.

Halévy retired last July after 32 years as law librarian at York's Osgoode Hall Law School.

"I was completely surprised and amazed to receive this award," said Halévy. "It was and is a great honour not only for me but for law librarians across the country who don't often receive public recognition for the work they do." He was not aware ahead of time that his name had been submitted for the award. He said his supervisors and staff managed to keep his nomination secret until his win was announced in December.

The Guthrie Award is named after Donald Guthrie who, for many years, served as the Law Foundation's chair and trustee. The award is given annually to an individual or organization "performing outstanding public service which makes a significant contribution to the enhancement of the administration of justice or to the furthering of the objects of the Law Foundation of Ontario: legal education and research, legal aid or the establishment, maintenance or operation of law libraries.

In a letter nominating Halévy, Osgoode Dean Peter Hogg highlighted "his vision and strength of purpose which has profoundly influenced North American and particularly Canadian law librarianship...because of Balfour's commitment, the York University law library is the largest law library in the Commonwealth and arguably, the best academic law library in Canada."

Halévy joined York as law librarian in 1967 before Osgoode's affiliation with York in 1968. His primary responsibility was to create a library to support the faculty and students of Osgoode and the wider York community, however, his vision was to establish a library of record for Canadian legal materials.

"The energy and enthusiasm he brought to this task was tremendous and infectious," wrote Hogg.

Under Halévy's leadership, Osgoode's law library was the first to develop the academic law library Cooperative Acquisitions Program, which later turned into the Virtual Academic Law Library Project. It provides free access within 48 hours to law students and faculty to materials owned by all participating Canadian academic libraries.

Osgoode was also the first law library to establish an online searching lab and to hire student research assistants to assist the reference librarians. This was fully funded by Osgoode with money from the Law Foundation of Ontario.

Osgoode's law library today contains approximately 48,000 volumes and microfilm equivalents, and has access to many electronic online or CD-ROM products including all the major legal databases. It is estimated that the extensive holdings include more than 90 per cent of all legal Canadiana ever published.

His retirement hasn't slowed Halévy down. He is keeping busy researching a Canadian legal bibliography, the most complete record of legal work published in Canada and outside the country. He said he expects to complete the bibliography in a couple of years, publish it and make it available on CD-ROM.