House of Butter is the original blawg publishing the scuttlebutt on law publishers from around the globe, most notably Butterworths (thus, presumably, the name…). This blog has been around what seems like forever. The site is hosted by PracticeSource.
That is about all I can tell you about it. Originally I thought it was written out of the U.K., but more recently I believe it to be from Australia. I have no idea who created it or who writes it. The editor recently identified himself as "Sean". I'm not even sure how one goes about submitting comments, although there is a list of comments on one of the sidebars.
If anyone could shed some light, that would be great. Otherwise, I take it as the gift that it is, some wonderfully anonymous inside commentary that is pithy, interesting, and often accurate. I encourage you to read it. Incidentally, editor Sean is on a break for the month of January, so you have a few days still to catch up on your House of Butter reading.
Slightly more info gleaned from the 'Net: Sean Hocking is the editor of House of Butter and can be reached at sean@practicesource.com . It is published out of Sydney, Australia.
He has a message archived from the Law-Lib listserv here: http://lawlibrary.ucdavis.edu/LAWLIB/aug03/0353.html
He also publishes Law Librarian News and contributes to the Law Librarian Blog. http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/law_librarian_blog/
And the only thing I could find on the name is that it's also the name of a book of short stories by Joanna Woś, from Indianapolis, about growing up in Poland. Hard to see any connection. "Butterworths" perhaps?
Those who live in a house of butter:
shouldn't live south of the 60th parallel?
can drop their bread either side down?
shouldn't throw scones?
oughtn't be called Marg?
are always slip-slidin' away?
And the earliest I could find was January 8, 2003 which is pre-history in legal blogs: http://web.archive.org/web/20030324152115/www.practicesource.com/
Sean Hocking is a fascinating person. He started Excata in 1999. This is how it is described by one library. This description was published in November 1999.
"Excata
Excata.com is a new web site that in the words of its press release ‘aims to be the one stop shop and information provider for lawyers, their support staff, in house counsel, law schools and government departments in Australia and the Asia Pacific region.'
"The excata.com site contains a number of different zones which offer discrete services :
Publishing Zone Providing direct links, information and ordering services for a range of publications. The Asia Pacific Publishers Zone will maintain catalogues for houses such as Asia Law & Practice (HK) & Asian Legal Briefings.
"News Zone
The Australian Commercial Law News Zone will provide current updates on the Australian commercial legal market.
"Services Zone Provides lawyers & legal information specialists with access to legal meta sites; Australian legislation; law news groups; legal search engines; legal mailing lists; legal associations; Australian government information and links; law firms; legal research tips.
"The Services for Lawyers Zone will also provide online shopping for lawyers, barristers and support staff.
"The site also provides a link to Legalmart.com.au, which offers legal services via the Web"
From memory this may have been bought by LexisNexis Australia as I encoutered Sean in that office a little while after this launch.
He and LN did not get along and after his departure Excata morphed into Practice Source. I think Sean now lives overseas and apart from all the material on PS he puts out a fortnightly newsletter for law librarians that is available by subscription.