Yale law library’s Open Access publishing initiative produces enormous download rates for its authors, and makes the material available to scholars and others all over the world, without regard to their location or their institution’s budgetary priorities.

And many US libraries have taken this step: 55% of libraries in a just-released SPARC survey. Some other highlights:

• About three-quarters of the programs publish between one and six journals, the majority of which are only distributed electronically
• The vast majority of library publishing programs (almost 90%) were launched in order to contribute to change in the scholarly publishing system, supplemented by

Which is not the same thing as “beer me”—it’s too early on a Friday for any of that, though both have to do, perhaps, with a kind of adjustment.

I’m a typophile—which is very like being a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles, as the Bard once put it, because nothing could be triflingly smaller than a single letterform or, indeed, the space between letters; and as for “unconsidered,” the job of type is to appear and yet to disappear at the same time so that the message comes through as clearly and as beautifully as possible. So what of kerning? What . . . [more]

This is a post in a series to appear occasionally, setting out some articles, videos, podcasts and the like that contributors at Slaw are enjoying and that you might find interesting. The articles tend to be longer than blog posts and shorter than books, just right for that stolen half hour on the weekend. It’s also likely that most of them won’t be about law — just right for etc.

Please let us have your recommendations for what we and our readers might like.

It’s funny how you can work in a field for a good number of years and completely miss an extremely pertinent term for that field. Then, suddenly it strikes you as particularly apt, and leaves you wondering how you had missed it. I have been working on questions of open access to research and scholarship for a little more than a decade, and last week I ran into intellectual philanthropy in a 2011 book by Taylor Walsh entitled Unlocking the Gates: How and Why Leading Universities Are Opening Up Access to Their Courses. Intellectual philanthropy struck me as . . . [more]

There is a lot of attention in the USA being paid to the impact of jurors, reporters and members of the public using social networking technologies in the courtroom. Canada is no stranger to the debate.

There is not as much material on the ethics of judges using the same tools such as Facebook or Twitter.

Michael Crowell of the School of Government at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has written a paper on Judicial Ethics and Social Networking Sites that looks at the issue:

For some time now state bar regulatory agencies have been addressing

The Wall Street Journal has a new piece on Amazon’s e-book lending service. Operating under the Amazon’s $79/year Prime service, the e-book lending will only work on Kindle and Kindle Fire devices (not iOS friendly), and is intended to boost sales of the Kindle devices. And as you might guess, it’s not available in Canada.

The article also has an interesting portion at the end on the relationship of Amazon’s Prime lending program to its library lending program:

At the Seattle public-library system, e-book borrowing rose 32% in the month after Kindle books became available, said Seattle’s electronic-resources librarian

According to yesterday’s press release, Irwin Law and Quebec digital publisher Nubook have agreed to distribute Irwin’s ebooks on a Nubook reading app designed for use on a tablet computer.

Irwin publisher, Jeffrey Miller, says:

…the Nubook solution allows us to preserve the unique and attractive design that differentiates our law books, while providing our readers with great features like refined search, links, and markups set up according to our editorial choices for the best reading experience.

Nubook has already developed an equivalent app for Wilson & Lafleur, as well as its own general purpose app. . . . [more]

Site news for those who read Slaw only via RSS or email

1. Comment Watch:

In the last week there were 55 comments. You might be particularly interested in the thoughtful discussion following Tamir Israel’s inaugural post on Crookes v. Newton and intermediary liability.

You can subscribe to the comments on Slaw either as a separate matter (RSS, email) or as part of a subscription combining posts and comments (RSS, email).

2. SlawTips

This week’s tips on SlawTips are:

• Tuesday: Technology: Four Tips for Easy Navigation of PowerPoint Slide Deck
• Wednesday:

For many lawyers, their workdays could best be described as chaotic, out of control or constant crisis management. They arrive at the office with no clear plan about how they are going to spend the day but just let the day unfold responding to each email or phone call as it appears. While their day may be productive and billable as this is all work needing attention, the feeling that all they are doing is putting out fires can be very frustrating.

Over the long term this type of crisis management means that matters requiring blocks of time do not . . . [more]

This actually seems to be more of a marketing campaign for Dell and Intel than a movement, but Happy IT Day to Information Technology professionals anyway. 

It’s time to celebrate and recognize the efforts of all IT professionals across Canada. Let’s thank our IT heroes for the hard work and long hours they put in everyday. Show your appreciation by saying “thank you” in your own way!

Perhaps the hotel industry will need the services of some IT professionals soon in light of this New York Times article entitled IPads Change Economics, and Speed, of Hotel Wi-Fi that says . . . [more]

I’ve come across a couple of new law reviews that might be of interest to SLAW readers…

1) The Washington Journal of Environmental Law and Policy from the University of Washington in Seattle. WJELP is a student run journal. Issues will be available for free online and the first issue is here. You can sign up for e-mail alerts of new issues at the journal’s website. All issues will also be archived at the University of Washington’s digital repository.

2) The Southampton Student Law Review is a new student publication from the Southhampton Law School in the UK. . . . [more]

Perhaps the thorniest of emerging Internet legal and policy issues these days is the question of Internet intermediaries. It is a feature of the Internet that all online activity is intermediated through at least one and often several service providers, such as ISPs, social networking sites, blog hosting sites, etc. Standing at the crux of all this activity, intermediaries are uniquely placed to exert a great deal of control and surveillance over activities of downstream users, making them a compelling target for policy-makers and aggrieved plaintiffs alike. The Supreme Court of Canada’s recent seminal decision in Crookes v. Newton offers . . . [more]