By Kevin McClure, IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law
kmcclure@kentlaw.iit.edu
Law librarians across Illinois had much to celebrate on August 26 when Gov. Quinn signed the Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act into law, making Illinois the eleventh state to enact the measure (Pennsylvania subsequently became the twelfth).
The long road to these victories began with a pair of landmark AALL reports, the State-by-State Report on Permanent Public Access to Electronic Government Information published in 2003, and the State-by-State Report on Authentication of Online Legal Resources in 2007. These reports identified the problems UELMA was written to address: lax attention to authentication, preservation, and permanent public access for the growing volume of official legal materials being posted online by state governments, leaving legal professionals and the public in doubt as to the trustworthiness of these online documents. Continue reading UELMA Signed Into Law in Illinois!