Wainwright Librarians
Wainwright Librarians oversee the acquisition of books on private and comparative law for the McGill University Law Library. An annual grant from the Wainwright Fund allows for the development of the private and comparative law collections at the Law Library on a scale unmatched by any other law libraries in the country. The works are carefully chosen with the objective of expanding the horizons of research and teaching at the Faculty. Books from all countries and important territories of civil law are of interest. In addition, Wainwright Librarians actively contribute to the increasing reputation of the Faculty by regularly attending and presenting at conferences and colloquiums on law as well as library science across America, Europe and Asia.
From 1998 to 2022, the McGill University legal community benefited from the contributions of Mtre Daniel Boyer, Ad. E., Wainwright Librarian emeritus, who dedicated himself to sharing his knowledge and understanding of legal literature within McGill University as well as with the legal communities in Quebec, Canada, and abroad. Holding degrees in History, Law and Library Science, Mtre Boyer participated in a wide range of professional and academic activities. In addition to his publications and conference presentations on Comparative Law, he acted as a consultant for Law Libraries, notably in Switzerland and Vietnam.
And the Seed of a Bequest thus Grew: The Wainwright collection of the Nahum Gelber Law Library at McGill University.
Law librarian Sonia Smith: "The Wainwright fund legacy allows for a strong collaboration between the Library and the Law Faculty and it currently sustains the Wainwright Lectures, Wainwright Fellowships, the Wainwright Legal Essay Competition and the Wainwright Scholarships awarded to law students. An annual grant from the Wainwright Fund allows for the development of the private and comparative law collections at the Law Library on a scale unmatched by any other law library in Canada."
Read Sonia Smith's article (released September 2019).
Contribution to the Acquiring of Books
Since the 1970s, the Wainwright Fund allows for an innovative partnership between the Faculty of Law and the Nahum Gelber Law Library of McGill University, with the Wainwright committee’s intervention. This partnership permits the constant expansion of McGill’s civil law collection, which as a result has attained an enviable reputation beyond our borders.
An annual amount is put at the disposal of the law library which then proceeds to the selection and purchasing of monographs according to criteria established in collaboration with the Wainwright committee and librarian.
These acquisitions (see list in right hand column) have allowed the library’s collection to move beyond the classic vision of civil law, centered on France, in order to reflect the global influence of civil law across continents, its historic evolution, as well as its linguistic diversity. Particular attention is equally paid to the historic dimension of civil law in order to support the unique and seminal Olivier-Martin collection, which forms the base of the Wainwright collection.