Law reform commission reports can be great sources for legal research. Many of the reports provide historical background and you can often find comparative information about how other jurisdictions have responded to an issue.

And August 2012 has been a very busy month for law reform commissions, with many of them bringing out publications on a range of topics. Here are a few examples:

• English Law Commission Consultation on Scandalising the Court (part of a larger project on contempt of court)
• English Law Commission Consultation Paper on Wildlife Law
• Law Commission of Ontario Interim Report on Vulnerable Workers
• New Zealand

We renewed the family public library card on the weekend. This morning I used my public library membership to search for news articles using a database that the library makes available. I love public libraries.

Consider, I can walk into any of the more than 300 libraries in Alberta, I can consult with a search expert, access services and a vast collection of material, including newspaper databases. All for $20.00 a year for my entire family – a fantastic value. Some of the P. Mireaus have eReaders, so we are also able to borrow eBooks from our library without even . . . [more]

A small item on the CBC Books website caught my attention the other day. Entitled The life of a prison librarian, it describes the unique experience of Québec-born writer Jean Charbonneau who has been working as a prison librarian in Maryland:

It would be a strange experience for most, but Charbonneau found a calling right away.

“I had the feeling that what was I doing there as a librarian was important,” he said in The Current’s [a CBC radio show] documentary “Shelf Life,” adding, “I don’t how many inmates have told me that they have never read a book

One of the many highlights for me at last month’s American Association of Law Libraries 2012 Conference was the opportunity to meet Priya Rai of the National Law University in Delhi and to observe her presentation, Access to Legal Information in the Digital Age: A Comparative Study of Electronic Commercial Databases and Public Domain Resources in Law.

Ms Rai is an accomplished law librarian and legal research instructor trained in law. One of her accomplishments is participation in the Information Institute of India Project. She attended and presented at AALL 2012 as the recipient of the FCIL Schaffer Grant . . . [more]

Like anyone who owns property along with a bank, I am always interested in interest rates.

Like anyone who would like to retire someday, I am always interested in interest rates.

Whether your primary concern with interest rates is from the borrowing or saving side of the equation, you may be interested in a Bank of Canada News Release about the publication schedule of interest rate announcements from Canada’s central bank.

Over the past several years, the Bank has streamlined its production processes for the Monetary Policy Report and gradually reduced the interval between the release of the rate decision

A few weeks I posted the 1959 vision of the Law Library of the Future, that got my gears turning and I undertook a visioning exercise the result of which I present now, The 2012 Law Library of the Future: To-Day! . . . [more]

If you like a good law librarian biography (and really, who doesn’t?), check out page 12 of the Summer edition of the VALL Review. Longtime colleague Susan Daly is profiled in a flattering and well deserved piece by VALL honoured member, Anne Beresford.

Susan is the latest VALL lifetime member to be announced, and I’m very pleased to see the Association make this recognition. Here are two of the great quotes included from her colleagues:

“Susan was an excellent and proficient legal researcher and probably the best for many years, she was never acknowledged as that and perhaps should

I had the opportunity to attend the 105th Annual Meeting and Conference of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL12) this week. AALL12 was my first conference experience with AALL and it was well worth the trip. The programming was informative, the networking opportunities stellar, and the exhibitor contact fruitful.

Programming

Although the AALL is, obviously, an American organization, the content of most sessions and poster presentations addresses matters of broad concern to law libraries without geographic restriction. Several of those on US legal subjects and resources are of substantive edification and are the subjects of some of the stories . . . [more]

The Fastcase 50 for 2012 was announced on Thursday, earlier than last year presumably to coincide with AALL 2012, the American Association of Law Libraries conference currently taking place in Boston.

According to the press release, the Fastcase 50 “recognizes the smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries, and leaders in the law” and were nominated by legal and legal technology industry leaders, law firm managers and other individuals.

From Ed Walters, CEO of Fastcase: “We get to recognize our heroes, the great thinkers, creators, and risk-takers who make this such an interesting time to work in legal tech. . . . [more]

Last week, on July 14th to be precise, the Law Library of Congress in Washington turned 180 years old.

It is the world’s largest law library, with a collection spanning many centuries as well as all jurisdictions of the planet.

And a glance at its website home page will give you some idea of the breadth of electronic material it makes available: international legal news, foreign legal materials, guides, databases and Congressional materials.

Happy Birthday! . . . [more]

A discussion on the Canadian Association of Law Libraries list this morning strikes me as worth a share here. Dawn Urquhart drew subscribers’ attention to a National Post – Legal Post article published on the web yesterday, “Court decisions may be lost in translation.” The article appears in today’s National Post with the somewhat less fair title, “Quebec decisions isolated by lack of translation,” and the even less fair lede, “Lawyers outside Quebec can’t read useful judgments.”

The author cites Ted Tjaden’s excellent post here on Slaw from last year, wherein Ted noted the limited overlap in . . . [more]

This morning my Toronto colleague Martha Foote was awarded the Thomson Reuters Westlaw Award for Career Achievement, the big award at the Special Libraries Association Legal Division breakfast. The award is designed to recognize a member who has provided significant service to the Division.

Martha is a past chair of the SLA Legal Division and has also served on the executive board of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries. When not serving the profession on a volunteer basis, she currently serves as Board General Manager of LibraryCo, the central management for the Ontario county courthouse library system.

Congratulations, . . . [more]