Weekend Reads

I’ve had the luxury of doing some good reading this holiday weekend. I thought I would share a few of the articles and books I’ve been looking at:

Resistance to courtroom tweeting based on myth, not reality, by Dean Jobb (Globe and Mail, July 31, 2013)
This is a summary of attitudes and policies towards Twitter use in Canadian courtrooms including a model policy for social media use in the courtroom developed by a team put together by the the Canadian Centre for Court Technology. Hat tip Luigi Benetton.

The Changing Role of Women in the Law Library Community by Monica Bay (On Firmer Ground, August 5, 2013)
Editor-in-Chief of Law Technology News Monica Bay muses on the recent American Association of Law Libraries conference and the role of women in the legal community. She noted a change over the last conference she had attended over a decade earlier, that law librarians are taking more of a leader role.

Conquer Writer’s Block: The 21-Minute Method by Gary Kinder (Attorney at Work, August 5, 2013)
Some useful tips on getting past writer’s block. As someone who does a lot of writing but tends to stall by trying to be perfect as I write, I think these methods look quite practical. Hat tip Mark Smith.

A Thousand Farewells: A Reporter’s Journey from Refugee Camp to the Arab Spring  by Nahlah Ayed (Viking Canada, 2012)
An autobiography by CBC reporter Nahlah Ayed. She was born in Winnipeg, but was moved when young by her parents to a Palestinian refugee camp in Amman, Jordan . She returned to Canada at the age of 13. In 2002 she joined the CBC as a Middle East reporter. This book outlines the things she has seen in Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan and other countries. A fascinating read.

New Business Networking: How to Effectively Grow Your Business Network Using Online and Offline Methods by Dave Delaney (Que, 2013).
My friend Dave Delaney is a pioneer in social networking and also a master at business networking. He now shares his techniques for building on in-person and online networking in this fast-reading guide.

Growth is Dead: Now What? by Bruce MacEwen (Adam Smith, Esq., 2013).
Bruce MacEwen has taken his popular and influential blog series “Growth is Dead” and put it into this book format. I have taken the opportunity to re-read the series in this format. I am finding it very helpful–he has a way of making dense, difficult economic information readable and understandable. This is a perfect format to give to a law firm management committee. I received a complimentary copy at MacEwen’s keynote talk while at the PLL Summit hosted by the Private Law Libraries Special Interest Section at the American Association of Law Libraries conference. Also available in Kindle ebook format. See also: my Slaw post on the blog series.