Harvard Law School Library plans to make collection available free online

The Harvard Law School Library has one of the most extensive collections of legal texts in the world. The Library recently announced that it plans to scan almost every volume in its shelves and upload the 40 million odd pages online. The move comes at a time technology is sophisticated enough to meet the public’s demands for greater access to justice.

The collection will be available at www.ravellaw.com and will be free for anyone to use. Ravell, the company backing the drive, hopes to make money from the initiative by providing additional analytical tools to users for a fee. These will allow users to comb the database with relative ease and precision.

Organisations such as Southern African Legal Information Institute (SAFLII) aim to provide an online repository of legal information to promote and support free access to public legal information in South Africa. Saflii is a member of the Free Access to Law Movement.