Just a quick note to highlight the fact that Slaw’s own Dominic Jaar is featured on today’s lexblog Q&A.
This week’s interviews were all geared toward the upcoming ABA Techshow, but they were also very kind to Canadians. LSBC practice management advisor, and legal management blogger Dave Bilinsky was featured earlier in the week.
Congrats gentlemen! . . . [more]
There’s a story I recall about some famous and brilliant mathematician — perhaps Norbert Wiener — who rarely took his nose out of a book and who didn’t like to waste time: he would read while walking to and from the classroom (or perhaps his office) but have his arm out such that with a small part of his (very big) brain he could count the doorframes as they were ticked off against his hand; at the right count, his wrist would stiffen, and with his arm as a lever, rotate himself into the room still reading.
Now, that’s multitasking. . . . [more]
As Clay Shirky’s latest book makes clear, the internet’s reduction of publishing costs to effectively zero has critical implications for all the professions that are built upon the former reality of high publishing costs, librarianship and journalism among them. What will happen to libraries in the coming decades? Do libraries have staying power in the face of a total reversal of the economic reality they are predicated upon?
As the recent discussions on Slaw about changes at Lexis-Nexis Quicklaw and Canadian Law Book indicate, many expect primary legal resources in the digital age to be free of costs, perpetually available, . . . [more]
In the February 14 edition, the Economist printed a special report on how governments are using technology to better communicate with citizens. The report contained a number of fascinating examples of the creative uses of information technology, but highlights the fact that governments are light-years behind businesses in using communication technology to serve people more efficiently.
The report tosses around two key terms: “i-government” and “e-government” . The first refers to the basic process of using the internet to provide information to citizens, while the second refers to providing government services directly to people through the internet.
A second way . . . [more]
I just saw an excellent demo by Recommind of two of their products: Decisiv Email and Axcelerate eDiscovery.
A huge challenge for every knowledge enterprise is capturing email on a centralized document management system. This is particularly so for “sent” email.
The Decisiv Email product uses Recommind’s “smart” technology to anticipate which folder to file an email in, whether the email arrives in your Outlook inbox or is being sent by you from Outlook. As you type the subject and content of an outgoing email, for example, the software predicts which client folder the email should be filed in. . . . [more]
First Monday, that veteran academic web journal, has a sustained critique of the web in its current issue. Here are the titles of the articles, linked to abstracts, which will give you a feel:
While Scrabulous is still dealing with various legal and copyright issues and two game companies are rumoured to be creating legitimate online versions of the game, one can easily forget about the joys of playing this board game for real. Yes, with real live people, pen and scorepad (and calculator for us mathematically-challenged), an agreed upon dictionary, and a few hours to kill, you too can spell your way to fun! But why not take it one step further and participate in Frontier College’s Scrabble Night in Canada:
The SCRABBLE® Friends and Family Challenge is a SCRABBLE® event that . . . [more]
Spring–wedding season–is just around the corner! This post is in response to a question that came to me via email this morning. Here are some key resources for those looking for information about same sex weddings in Toronto:
Canadian Lawyer has given SLAW a nod as a Top 10 luminary of the Canadian blawgosphere.
Others include:
Rule of Law . . . [more]
Information literacy is a well-established principle in library and information studies. Ensuring that their target population – users of their libraries and information centres – are information literate is a key goal of librarians and information specialists. The concept requires that library users know (or know how to determine) the questions they need to ask, how to find (or seek assistance in finding) the information they need to answer their questions, and – crucially – how to critically (and perhaps skeptically) examine and understand that information.
This goal applies equally to the specific context of legal analysis and legal research. . . . [more]
Have you ever had the experience of working at something fairly important only to have your attention hijacked by a jot, a mustard seed, a thing so insignificant as to be an absence, even? The memo is due by the end of the day and along about 3 p.m. it strikes you that there’s this blemish on the “k” key; you can feel it with the tip of your ring finger, you swear you can; and it’s… irritating. What you really need is a Q-tip and maybe some nail polish remover. You go looking…
As I’ve mentioned a couple of . . . [more]
From the Torys Speaker Series at the University of Ottawa Law and Technology:
Facing up to Facebook
A panel discussion on social media and social networking
Please join the Law & Technology group as Professors Jane Bailey, Jeremy de Beer, Michael Geist, Ian Kerr, and Valerie Steeves discuss legal issues arising from Facebook and related social media technologies.
Date: Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Time: 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
Place: Fauteux Hall, room 351
Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa
Please RSVP to techlaw@uottawa.ca.
Join the Facing up to Facebook event page.
Note about this event . . . [more]
