Professor Ahti Saarenpää is Professor of Private Law and Director of the Institute for Legal Informatics in the Faculty of Law at the University of Lapland. His responsibilities nationally include the deputy chairship of the Data Protection Board and work with the Supervisory Board of the Finnish Bar Association. Professor Saarenpää served for many years as a member of the board of the Library of Parliament in Helsinki and presently chairs the board of the library at the University of Lapland.
READING AND COMPARING LEGAL SOURCES
Abstract. In the Network Society, official legal information has, more clearly than ever before, become part of our social capital – and thus a resource we best take very good care of.
In any state governed by the rule of law, the legal superhighway runs from human and fundamental rights to legislation and the guidelines for implementing it; this is a route that should be made plainly visible on the net using the appropriate signs, images and descriptions.
In the day-to-day work of the lawyer, it is also important that we note the new, global character of legal information. When working with legal information – be it theoretical or practical – we increasingly find ourselves needing the skills to cross the boundaries between legal cultures.
These fundamental changes require that we take a deeper and more comprehensive approach in teaching information literacy in law, one that guides prospective and practicing lawyers alike to appreciate the societal significance of legal information and how influences from different legal cultures are reflected in the texts they read.