I’d like everyone’s feedback on an issue that arises from time to time when I talk with other research lawyers in Calgary. Until recently, it was our view that the free websites (eg. CanLII) were not very useful; their search capabilities were clumsy, their coverage was limited, and/or the scope and coverage of the database was not known. While it is likely the free databases of legal materials are improving, it is my impression, and my practice, to use the commercial databases for most of my comprehensive legal research. I would like to know what others are doing in their . . . [more]

Michael Geist’s Law Bytes column in today’s Toronto Star [freely available version] tells of Canadian national science advisor Dr. Arthur Carty who argued that scientific success increasingly depends upon fostering a “culture of sharing” based on open access models of communication that leverage the Internet to disseminate research quickly and freely to all. Michael echoed my mantra that while researchers rarely receive compensation for their contributions, publishers have enjoyed a financial windfall by charging thousands of dollars for journals filled with the free content generated with the financial support of the public purse through millions of dollars in . . . [more]

What is a Search Engine?

Three pieces in the last 24 hours have left me wondering about whether what we think of as a tool for retrieving information might not be much more than that.

They concern the extension of platforms, the ability of distributed information to enable competitive comparisons, and the potential of community-based searching – think about a search engine that knows the preferred sources of legal researchers.

This morning’s RoB has a piece from the Wall Street Journal on how Google results can now be texted to a mobile phone. An open link to the facts behind . . . [more]

1. natural language searching
2. Infotoday: searching and feedback loops
3. Search Engine Watch: Google
4. The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine
5. PC World: New Search Stars
6. CALI: Activity-theoretical approach to legal info retrieval [ppt]
7. Blogshares values Slaw
8. BAILII
9. UK’s Joint Information Systems Committee
10. BAILII’s Open Law Project
11. Wikipedia: Samuel A. Alito
12. report: The Future of Human Resources in Canadian Libraries
13. L’avenir des ressources humaines dans les bibliothéques canadiennes
14. Canadian Judicial Council: model policy on court records
15. Canadian Bar Association
16. CBA: “Podcasting: Coming to a Law Firm Near You”
17. CBA: “Legal Research Roundtable.”
18. Hein Online
19. Ontario: e-Laws
20. Ontario: Legislation Act Part

Back in the day, did you ever admire the Rhino party for their chutzpah? Or perhaps you have a serious socio-political agenda to promote? Well, if we go into our next federal election soon, your time may never have been better to start your own political party!

Yes, my friends, we’ve all heard that it takes a minimum of 50 candidates to create an official political party in Canada. Well, not any more!

Currently we have a window of opportunity to create a new party with only one candidate! That’s right, you heard me correctly. . . . [more]

The Globe and Mail carried a story on the front page (Wed Nov 3, 2005) that illustrates the power of the Internet. A 15 year old boy who was conceived with the help of a sperm donation set out to find his birth father. He submited a swab of saliva from the inside of his cheek to the web based FamilyTreeDNA.com paying $298 USD to register on the site. Within nine months, and with his permission, he is contacted by two men with similar DNA profiles … both with similar sounding names (but different spellings). Using this possible family name . . . [more]

While I’m on my Google kick, I thought I’d point to the rejuvenated Google Print that will begin scanning and publishing work again any day now… soon… probably. As Joe Hodnicki says, “Sounds like Google is lawyering-up.” But in the meanwhile, there are interesting things to be found in the material available from contributing publishers, especially, perhaps, in the tables of contents.

An unsophisticate search for law AND Canada OR Canadian turns up a good bunch of interesting material, starting with Marc Ribeiro’s 2005 book, Limiting Arbitrary Power: The Vagueness Doctrine in Canadian Constitutional Law (Vancouver: UBC Press), ISBN 0774810513, . . . [more]

I saw an unrelated reference today to something that reminded me of the research by Professor Carol Kuhlthau on research anxiety and the various stages that the typical student or researcher needs to pass through when conducting research. Many students are not aware of the phases they must pass through as part of the research process, so I sometimes find it useful to discuss these stages of research anxiety. . . . [more]

Like most of you, I’m sure, I’ve known for some time about Google’s customizable “home page.” When I first learned about it I set up some items giving me BBC news and the New York Times, some bookmarks for a couple of sites I like, the weather for places I’d rather be… And I really never went back.

Only today (blush) did it dawn on me — and then only because a friend showed me something nearby — that this thing is, or could be, an RSS news aggregator that works out better than Google Reader, certainly for those . . . [more]

The CBC reports on a Canadian Internet Project study that suggests Canadians are heavy users of the Internet with 56 per cent of all Canadians are online at least seven hours a week, with the average Canadian user online 13.5 hours each week. . . . [more]

Further to Neil Campbell’s post of last week about the Open Content Alliance project to digitize libraries…

Brewster Kahle has produced an e-book called The Open Library to describe the Alliance’s process and to hash over some of the problems about copyright and reading on line. Kahle, through his foundation, is a main benefactor of the Internet Archive, and has long championed making out-of-copyright works available to everyone (especially poor children) through digitization and print-on-demand.

Now that the main Canadian universities are part of the Open Content Alliance, it’ll be interesting to see whether any of our law libraries . . . [more]

Last week the Attorney General of Ontario introduced the Access to Justice Act, Bill 14. Schedule F to that Act is a new statute, the Legislation Act. Part IV (sections 28 – 35) of the Legislation Act is called Proof of Legislation. It makes the text of statutes and regulations on the e-Laws website an “official copy” of the law (s. 29(1)(b)) and an official copy is presumed to be an accurate statement of the law, unless the contrary is proved (s. 32).

There are rules about the period during which this accuracy is presumed.

33. Unless the contrary is