VAIDIK, J.
Pursuant to a 2010 amendment to Indiana Evidence Rule 201(b), a court may now take judicial notice of “records of a court of this state.” Because H.B. (“Mother”) did not request an opportunity to be heard pursuant to Rule 201(e) after the trial court in this case took judicial notice, we conclude that the court properly took judicial notice of a protective order that Mother obtained against an ex-boyfriend and then considered it in the custody modification proceedings with J.R. (“Father”). We therefore affirm the trial court.
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Mother contends that the trial court erred in considering the substance of the protective order she obtained against Davis because the protective order file was not admitted into evidence at the hearing. Mother concedes that she testified at the hearing that she obtained a protective order against Davis for punching a hole in her wall, but she points out that neither she nor any other witness testified to the other information contained in the protective order file, such as that Davis smashed a phone in her face and threatened to kill her boyfriend. Mother thus argues in her brief:
No party requested the court to take judicial notice of any Protective Order file, nor did the Court advise the parties of its intention to seek out such file for purposes of deciding this case. The first knowledge counsel had of this matter was when the Order was distributed to counsel on April 26, 2010, long after the evidence was closed. Mother was given no opportunity to object to the extrajudicial inquiry.
Appellant’s Br. p. 9.
Indiana Evidence Rule 201 governs judicial notice. Evidence Rule 201 was amended in 2009 and went into effect on January 1, 2010. Pursuant to the amendment, a court may now take judicial notice of “records of a court of this state.” Ind. Evidence Rule 201(b)(5). Before this amendment, a court could not take judicial notice of its own records in another case previously before it, even on a related subject with related parties. See, e.g., Whatley v. State, 847 N.E.2d 1007, 1009 (Ind. Ct. App. 2006).
In addition, “[a] court may take judicial notice, whether requested or not,” Evid. R. 201(c), and judicial notice may be taken at any stage of the proceeding, id. at (f). And a party does not have to be notified before a court takes judicial notice. Rule 201(e) instructs:
A party is entitled, upon timely request, to an opportunity to be heard as to the propriety of taking judicial notice and the tenor of the matter noticed. In the absence of prior notification, the request may be made after judicial notice has been taken.
(Emphasis added).
Applying Evidence Rule 201 to the case at hand, we conclude that the trial court properly took judicial notice of the protective order file. Because Rule 201 provides that a trial court can take judicial notice at any stage of the proceeding, it does not matter that the court took judicial notice after the hearing was concluded. Although Mother was not afforded an opportunity to be heard before the court took judicial notice, Rule 201(e) provides that Mother could have made a timely request after judicial notice was taken. She, however, did not do this. The fact that Mother is now appealing the trial court’s action does not constitute a timely request for an opportunity to be heard pursuant to Rule 201(e). Instead, she had to make that request to the trial court.
Although we conclude that the trial court properly took judicial notice of the protective order file pursuant to Evidence Rule 201, we point out that the better course of action would have been for the court to have given the parties notice and an opportunity to be heard before taking judicial notice and issuing its order. Undoubtedly, our information technology explosion has allowed our courts, as never before, to access reliable information that may aid in the just disposition of cases. Our Supreme Court, recognizing this, has encouraged courts to communicate with one another by establishing family courts [footnote omitted] and creating JTAC (Judicial Technology and Automation Committee), [footnote omitted] while liberalizing the judicial notice rule. But the danger of having a broad spectrum of information at the disposal of courts is that mistakes in input, inscription, and transmission can occur. To alleviate the danger of such errors, litigants must be given the opportunity to explain or respond to the judicially-noticed information. We understand that the Indiana Rules of Evidence allows litigants to respond to this information at any stage of the proceeding, but we believe that, where practicable, the best practice is for courts to notify the parties before taking notice of and issuing a ruling which utilizes this information.
MAY, J., and ROBB, J., concur.