Almost two decades have passed since the United Nations began digitizing its documents. The UN started the Official Document System (ODS) as a pilot project in 1992, and officially launched it in 1993. Since then, there has been an explosion of UN documents and publications available in electronic format from a variety of sources, for free and via subscription. I recently checked the current status of UN documentation online, and here’s what I found. And what I expected to find, and didn’t. And some worrisome developments.

Discovery Tools

UNBISnet, the UN Dag Hammarskjöld Library bibliographic information system, indexes e-versions . . . [more]

Info, info everywhere, nor any place to shelve. (With apologies to Samuel Taylor Coleridge and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.)

In a library, information overload can mean a physical overload as well as mental. Reporting series, annual statutes, conference papers all take up shelf room; how do you know what to keep and what can safely be turfed? One of my colleagues recently called and asked if I kept a particular item on my shelves. No, I didn't, since it was officially available online. After all, shelves do eventually fill up, and if some other organization is willing . . . [more]

“How are things in the library?” A door opens – not the elevator door, but the door of opportunity. Are you ready?

The concept of the “elevator speech” has been popping up all over the place lately. At the Ontario Government Libraries Council AGM, keynote speaker Farida Karim challenged us to come up with a 30-second synopsis of what our libraries do. Umair Haque, blogging for The Harvard Business Review, has dumped the elevator speech in favour of the Dumbwaiter Speech. In other reading, I’ve seen librarians chastised because they are unable to explain what their library does in . . . [more]

At the awards luncheon at the recent CALL conference (Canadian Association of Law Libraries) in Windsor, ON, the Hugh Lawford Award for Excellence in Legal Publishing was presented to the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society Library & Information Services for their Nova Scotia Annotated Civil Procedure Rules service. CALL’s decision to present this award to this organization for this product is significant for two reasons: First, it justly recognizes an innovative and extremely useful new legal publication; second, and perhaps more important, it has been awarded by librarians to librarians for their publishing activity. As we move deeper into the digital . . . [more]

Law firm librarians are often critical of the lack of research skills demonstrated by the annual crop of new graduates when they start working in law firms. The issue has been a bone of contention for many years, and can create a divide between academic and firm librarians. I think the issue is not one of training, but of understanding that the purpose of a university education and that of a law firm placement are fundamentally different, and legal research needs and experiences have little in common from one environment to the other.

I was back in my home town . . . [more]

At the end of September, four members of the Ontario Government Libraries Council (OGLC) presented a workshop at Showcase Ontario, the Ontario government's enormous technology and information conference. The session was about how to use non-traditional media such as blogs and Twitter for current awareness, and included two practical case studies from the Office of the Fire Marshal and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. Registrations for the session topped 400. Since then, various members of the panel have been asked to make presentations to other audiences, to contribute content to articles reporting on social media use in government, and . . . [more]

The relationship of legal information to context is a key dimension of recent developments in legal informatics scholarship and innovation. These developments range from investigations in law and psychology to political and moral theory, from explorations in artificial intelligence and law to legal information theory, and from research on the legal Semantic Web to the creation of new applications that help nonlawyers contextualize legal information.

Professor Guido Boella, Dr. Guido Governatori, and colleagues are exploring ways to model legal contexts to aid automated legal reasoning. In their recent paper these scholars show how defeasible logic can be employed . . . [more]

It's March. Soon the doors of universities and colleges will be flung open, and a stream of students will emerge. Somewhat pasty, a little dazed from the efforts of final exams and papers, they have only one thing on their minds – JOBS. The University of Toronto’s i-School has already had its job fair. Governments are starting the hunt for summer students, and new grads are looking for that first job. It’s a heady time for students and employers alike. I thought it would be appropriate to offer some reflections and tips for job hunters and employers.

Are you in . . . [more]

What is it about lawyers and librarians that we spend so much time thinking, talking and trying to change the way our professions are perceived? A search through the literature of both disciplines reveals what amounts to an obsession. I suppose that I shouldn’t be surprised, given that “client-focused” is a key characteristic of both groups. We worry about how we are perceived because otherwise we run the risk of losing business. If we don’t articulate our value, we’re expendable. 

SLAWyer Jordan Furlong has taken on the task of articulating the value of the legal profession in his Law 21 . . . [more]

At the end of September, four members of the Ontario Government Libraries Council (OGLC) presented a workshop at Showcase Ontario, the Ontario government’s enormous technology and information conference. The session was about how to use non-traditional media such as blogs and Twitter for current awareness, and included two practical case studies from the Office of the Fire Marshal and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. Registrations for the session topped 400. Since then, various members of the panel have been asked to make presentations to other audiences, to contribute content to articles reporting on social media use in government, and . . . [more]

I always laugh when I see the seemingly inevitable use of “whither” in library-related publications. It just as inevitably suggests “wither” and reminds me that we are a profession at some risk. It might seem unfair to pick on word choice, but “whither” always strikes me as being out of touch.

Law libraries are at risk of becoming similarly out of touch. Recent research on behalf of the Special Libraries Association by Outsell, Inc. and Fleishman-Hillard suggests that special libraries may be out of step with their organizations. While SLA’s Alignment project is focused on positioning the association . . . [more]

“Digitization” is certainly a term to conjure with in libraries these days. A variety of reasons has motivated these projects. The physical degradation of irreplaceable collections is a considerable spur, as is the trend toward greater openness and improved access to information. The Library of Congress has been developing significant digital collections, including the American Memory project, Thomas (the legislative archive), and newspaper collections. In Canada, government and university libraries are looking closely at their holdings, with an eye to making rare materials available via the web. The Library and Archives Canada is also building digital collections of literary . . . [more]