I was a guest at a meeting of Toronto research lawyers today (see Ted Tjaden’s post below) and found it very interesting. Among other things, I got a couple of ideas from it for research tools that might be helpful, one of which is set out in this post.

I’m an academic and for me the commercial databases are free; so it always takes me a moment to remember that practitioners have to pay — correction: their clients have to pay — for these services. Moreover, I don’t think I properly appreciated how careful practitioners can be about whether . . . [more]

A question arose today among colleagues how best to stay “current” with law-related information without becoming overwhelmed.

Certainly, technology has a role to play but I also suspect there is no “one size fits all” solution for every person. For example, I find my information-seeking habits and needs now (as an academic law librarian) are quite different from when I was a practicing research lawyer. Set out below are some of the various techniques I have used, along with a list of some of the standard websites I would ordinarily visit on a regular basis. . . . [more]

Welcome to http://www.copyrightwatch.ca/ which Larry Lessig’s blog led me to. Exploding the myths of Canadian copyright law, one fallacy at a time. . . . [more]

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I only just noticed now that WestlaweCARSWELL has added “IP Source” as one of its “modules” – perhaps it has been there for awhile but I only noticed it now (by default, the system only appears to accept a maximum of 6 tabs and adding IP Source to existing tabs results in 7 tabs, so you would need to drop one of your other tabs).

I don’t want to seem too “promotional” here but the IP Source looks interesting for IP practitioners/researchers and includes a number of Carswell-authored IP texts, including those by Fox/McKeown, Joliffe and Dimock, in addition to . . . [more]

In an October 24, 2005, op/ed piece in the Hill Times – available for free on the website of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) – AUCC President Claire Morris accuses Access Copyright of distorting the position of Canadian educators who merely want the right, as educators, to access material that is “publicly available” on the Internet. An important piece in the debate on Canadian copyright reform and an eloquent plea for a balanced approach. . . . [more]

Stray thought on a Sunday night. One of the most difficult places remaining in the Commonwealth, in legal research terms. is the West Indies. There are now more requests for assistance on law librarian listservs for assistance for materials from Caribbean jurisdictions than anywhere else – whether it be tax legislation from Jamaica or cases from Barbados. The region is not as well covered as most African or Pacific jurisdictions which, given its location on the North American doorstep, is inexplicable. And this is the case with respect to both free and paid services as far as I am aware. . . . [more]

The University of Texas’s Institute of Transnational Law has posted some 1,000 translated foreign judgments and statutes to the UT Law School website.

The material is from France, Germany, Israel, Austria and Italy. . . . [more]

1. World Trade Online
2. LawHawk
3. Google toolbar
4. Wikipedia: PageRank
5. Google
6. Googleblog: Googlebombing
7. Research Buzz: Google Librarian Center
8. Google Librarian Center
9. Google Reader
10. Cindy Chick: on Google Reader
11. Wikipedia: OPML
12. International Herald Tribune
13. IHT article by Smiers on no copyright
14. Palm, Inc.
15. Research In Motion
16. Research In Motion press release

. . . [more]

This is an unashamed plug for one of my favourite online databases – World Trade Online. I’ve set up access from every law school I’ve worked in (Monash, UofT, Queens, and now Osgoode Hall at York) and it occured to me while arranging access here just now that there may still be some out there who have not heard of it. If you or your library users are interested in world trade issues you can’t beat this resource. As well as the online version of Inside US Trade it includes a vast array of reports and special analyses on aspects . . . [more]

Thomson Announces New Alliance with AUSTLII Thomson Legal and Regulatory is pleased to announce a new strategic alliance with AUSTLII, (the Australasian Legal Information Institute), which expands and enhances the provision of full text legislation content to our online customers.... The new alliance with AUSTLII enables Thomson to significantly improve the range of services that are enriched with hypertext links to legislation, and to expand jurisdiction coverage to cover the States and Territories, as well as the existing Commonwealth coverage.... When a user clicks a link to a particular section of legislation on Lawbook Online, a new window will appear containing the full text of the relevant section of legislation.

The Google Toolbar PageRank (PR) has finally been updated, and Slaw has received a PR5! To see this for yourself, you must have the Google Toolbar installed, and have the PR bar indicator ‘checked off’ under ‘Options…’.

Google PR is updated on a continual basis, but the only glimpse we get into this algorithm factor is via the Toolbar. It’s also important to note that PR is only one of over a hundred estimated elements in how Google calculates the search results. In reality, it’s not a great indicator of how a website will rank in the SERPS (search engine . . . [more]