Slaw’ers often make posts regarding a new search engine or tool available on the web; for a wider angle view of this topic Search Engine Watch is a site dedicated to new developments in this area.

This site includes: Ratings of various engines and services, a Resource Page, which includes reviews, tutorials etc., a daily and/or monthly newsletter that one can subscribe to, a blog and it is all available via RSS if one so desires. . . . [more]

Thanks to a comment by Michael Lines on my electronic discovery piece, I've discovered the InterPARES Project at the University of British Columbia: The International Research on Permanent Authentic Records in Electronic Systems (InterPARES) aims at developing the theoretical and methodological knowledge essential to the long-term preservation of authentic records created and/or maintained in digital form. This knowledge should provide the basis from which to formulate model policies, strategies and standards capable of ensuring the longevity of such material and the ability of its users to trust its authenticity.

In a recent post (see Electronic Discovery) I raised the often troublesome relationship between lawyers and IT folk in law firms. One of my jobs at Osgoode Hall Law School over the past few years has been to mediate between the IT people and the faculty, and so I know a little about this vexed meeting of minds, but I’d imagined that somehow things would be better worked out in the professional context of practice than in the sometimes quirky academic world. Seems I may have been wrong.

Do your IT people talk to your lawyers? Do the lawyers . . . [more]

Quaero is billed as Europe’s answer to Google, but it has a lot to live up to….

So far Quaero is just a scattering of top tech minds in labs across France and Germany, working on what they hope will be the world’s most advanced multimedia search engine.

Quaero epitomizes European ambitions — especially for French President Jacques Chirac — of creating alternatives to U.S. technological prowess. But facing off against super-rich, super-talented U.S. companies may prove daunting for the cumbersome consortium of European companies and public agencies hatching Quaero.
Globetechnology: European tech giants craft search engine

Yep. That and . . . [more]

Not being a practicing lawyer, I’ve required more than a moment to clue into the depth and difficulty of the problems facing law firms and their clients as a result of all of the current forms of electronic data, ranging from emails to material on web sites, or blogs for that matter.

As I’m sure the rest of Slaw knows, these forms are more evanescent than good old paper, and are more subject to easy… emendation, shall we say, or to unintended publication. These foibles can prove troublesome within lawsuits, for example, when documents must be produced or otherwise made . . . [more]

When teaching students or lawyers about legal research on the Internet, I usually try to also explain the concept of the “deep” or “invisible” web – the large number of webpages that are not indexed by major search engines. One of the more complete online articles on the topic of finding this sort of material is by Marcus P. Zillman on LLRX.com. His article is entitled “Deep Web Research 2005” and can be found here. The Wikipedia entry on “deep web” can be found here. . . . [more]

Just a quick note to show Jack Vinson’s list of KM Bloggers.

Vinson built his list using Blogdigger Groups, which includes both opml export capabilities, and an aggregated feed. . . . [more]

The 2006 Bloggies (more formally known as the 5th Annual Weblog Awards) are taking blog nominations up until 10 pm EST tonight.

These are the categories: . . . [more]

Further to my previous post on this, I managed to find out more about Project Alouette – Ted is right, it is part of the Open Canada Digitization Initiative, the name Project Alouette was just announced before Christmas. There is no website as yet.

This is a text of the press release from CARL from November:

COMMUNIQUÉ

CANADA’S RESEARCH LIBRARIES LAUNCH THE OPEN CANADA DIGITIZATION INITIATIVE

OTTAWA – November 17, 2005. Leaders of Canada’s major research libraries held a national summit at Emerald Lake, BC, November 1-3, 2005. The summit outlined plans for online access to Canada’s recorded heritage. At . . . [more]

I look at UK web-sites from time to time to see if they have made any progress with putting up consolidated versions of legislation. A year or so back I found information about a government project that was doing just that, but all information about it seems to have vanished – or at least I cannot find it. HMSO Online seems to have evolved into a new Office of Public Sector Information (with the wonderful acronym OPSI) and this site gives the text of original Acts, but they don’t seem to incorporate amendments. Perhaps one of SLAW’s UK readers can . . . [more]

We’re not in Kansas any more.

And Google clearly isn’t just a search engine company.

Today they announced a smorgasbørd of software in the form of the Google Pack.

The interesting one is the Norton Antivirus 2005 Special EditionNorton AntiVirus Special Edition does not include the following features: Norton™ Internet Worm Protection, which stops certain damaging Internet worms at their attempted point of entry; and extended threat protection, which detects spyware and certain non-virus threats such as adware and keystroke logging programs

You’ll need Windows XP with Administrator privileges and either Firefox 1.0+ or Internet Explorer 6.0+

Here is . . . [more]

Tomorrow the Education Institute, a partnership of a number of Canadian library associations, will be conducting a teleseminar on RSS entitled “The Ins and Outs of RSS: Really Simple Solutions for Really Simple Syndication” being presented by Geoffrey Harder.

Key topics:

• Finding RSS feeds
• How to find and use an on-line or desktop news aggregator
• How to create feeds

While the intended audience is library staff, I’ve had a look at my advance copy of the presentation screens and think this would be of interest to a wider audience.

It’s not too late to sign up . . . [more]