I’m reluctant to introduce commercial content to SLAW; however, I think some kudos should go to Heinonline for some of the excellent work they are doing in building theme related collections of digital documents from disparate library holdings. I know from previous postings on SLAW that some Toronto law firms are considering subscribing to Hein. One of their new releases is the World Trials Collectiosn which they describe in a brief summary as collections of famous trials from libraries around the world, and from antiquarian book dealers, as well as books that analyze and debate famous trials, as well as . . . [more]

My friend Ron Friedmann of Prism Legal Consulting recently delivered an interesting presentation to an American legal publishing audience that has lots of resonance here too.
Legal Publishers in 2007 and Beyond Ron’s PowerPoint deck is here.
Legal publishers play an important role in the legal market. They have moved from print, to digital content, to assembling an array of services. How will changing technology affect publishers? . . . [more]

The US Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal attacking the constitutionality of a provision in federal legislation providing that detainees in Guantanamo cannot challenge their detentions in US civil courts. Three judges — Breyer, Souter and Ginsbert, JJ. — dissented; and two of the majority rejected the application on procedural grounds.

According to a report by BBC News:

The court’s majority opinion was that “the will of Congress” should prevail and that habeas corpus did not apply to foreign nationals being held at Guantanamo Bay because it is not US soil.

See also the Reuters report in . . . [more]

Erica Anderson, Research Librarian at the Legislative Library, Ontario, asked me to post this news to SLAW:

A collaboration between the Ontario Legislative Library and the Ontario Council of University Libraries’ Scholar’s Portal has resulted in the Legislative Library’s Ontario government documents collection now being available through OZone. This collection is also accessible through the Legislative Library catalogue. The OZone partnership and database will help to ensure the digital preservation of these materials for the long term, create a permanent url for the documents, and housing multiple copies in these two locations will help keep the collection safe

I’m trying, over on the blawg about the Supreme Court of Canada – The Court [www.thecourt.ca] – to start a discussion about the adequacy (or not) of the SCC’s performance in private law areas that generally fall under the “obligations” rubric, although I’ve started it by using tort & damages cases.

My theme is the adequacy of judgments from the perspective of the practitioners who have to use them to advise clients. I’m sure the problem has arisen, recently, in areas other than those I’ve mentioned. Somebody could mention the punitive damages jurisprudence. The thread could expand, of course, to . . . [more]

In the paper world, I make use of document piles to organize my work. You probably do the same. This pile here is such-and-so, that pile there is the tax material, and the red file sticking out has the notes I’ve been making… But on my computer I tend to go neat and hierarchical, with a more rigid taxonomy and maybe overlapping (i.e. piles) of windows. Not so easy to have an intelligent mess, perhaps.

At least, that’s the theory behind BumpTop, a technology in the development stage that would let you make piles of files on your computer . . . [more]

Quick – sign up for Google’s TiSP before they pull the plug.

Have a safe, enjoyable, Pranks Day, and don’t do anything that you wouldn’t want done to you.

Cheers,

David

  . . . [more]

Slaw was unavailable on Friday afternoon, for which downtime we apologize. We’ve fixed the problem, have learned a little (isn’t that always the way), felt too stressed to worry about the Friday Fillip, and generally sighed with relief at being back online once more.

So… please resume: reading, commenting, posting… . . . [more]

A news release from the South Australian government led me to the Law Handbook Online which contains an overview of the law in South Australia presented in everyday language. It outlines rights and responsibilities in a range of legal areas in plain language and advises on where the public can go for more assistance.

All of this done at Fitzroy on a grant of $30,000.

The taxonomy is fascinating, since it is entirely client-need oriented.

What is there comparable in Canada?I duly note the pioneering work of Ted Tjaden, the Jewetts (Access to the Law: A Study Conducted for . . . [more]

Librarians are hitting the big-time news like never before. Here are the latest offerings:

Public Library Geeks Take Web 2.0 to the Stacks, Wired, March 29, 2007

Helene Blowers of the North Carolina’s Charlotte & Mecklenburg County public library describes the Learning 2.0 program she developed:

Recognizing that librarians need to know how to participate in the new media mix if libraries are to remain relevant, Blowers challenged her 550 staffers to become more web savvy. Using free web tools, she designed the program and gave staff members three months to do 23 things.

They created blogs and

The Great Firewall of China is a site that allows you to test whether your blog is censored in China. Seems it flips the URL you put in over to a server located in the People’s Republic and lets you know if it comes up… roses or not.

Slaw is available in China, I’m happy to say. (I think.) . . . [more]

Fascinating testimony from the Librarian of Congress on the challenges that the library faces in being a repository library when digital information is exploding.

In today’s digital environment, it takes only 15 minutes to produce an amount of information equivalent to the 134 million analog (physical) materials the Library of Congress has acquired in more than two centuries.

He emphasized that digital materials, contrary to some assumptions, are less stable than analog materials, because digital content is easily altered, corrupted or even lost. He noted that the average Web site’s life span is between 44 and 75 days and