Volume 8 Issue 2

Citation of Internet Legal Materials - Problems and Prospects*

COLIN FONG**

The proliferation of legal materials on the Internet has given rise to the need for uniform standards for the citation of internet materials. The paper examines the issues which need to be addressed in any attempt to develop a uniform style of citation. First, it compares and contrasts citing from the Internet with citing from paper based sources, considering what information a citation from each medium needs to contain. Then the paper considers developments in the United States and Canada, focussing on proposals to develop vendor and medium neutral methods for citing legal materials which could be used for the citation of electronic and paper-based materials, before considering Australian developments in more detail. In particular, it considers the problem of pinpoint citations from electronic sources which are not subdivided into pages. After considering whether approaches used by library science to recognise, describe and evaluate information resources could provide a useful model for the citation of electronic legal materials, the paper concludes by considering the likelihood of reform in Australia.

** Research Librarian, University of Sydney Law Library; Librarian, ATAX (Australian Taxation Studies Program), Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales.