David Thomas: “as the world is catapulted into the electronic information age, the United States has a rare opportunity not only to…”

“as the world is catapulted into the electronic information age, the United States has a rare opportunity not only to participate in a truly international legal database but also to sustain a leadership role in setting the highest standard for the creation and maintenance of such a database. It is also a fortuitous moment for the Congress to encourage and support an effort that will inure to the direct benefit of the Congress in its legislative functions by having access to foreign laws contemporaneously with or shortly after publication in the country of origin. This effort, conceived and developed by our own Law Library of Congress, is the Global Legal Information Network, popularly referred to as ``GLIN.'' GLIN is an international, cooperative, non-commercial database of legal information contributed to by governments of member nations in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. As a mission-driven project, GLIN was developed by the Law Library as a way to organize and gain access to legal information so that the Law Library could respond to requests from Congress in a timely, efficient manner since the Law Library is responsible for doing research and analysis on the laws of other nations, comparative law, and international law. This continues to be the goal of the Law Library's participation in GLIN. The database comprises abstracts of legal material, full texts of laws and regulations, and a legal thesaurus.”