Algorithms have become ubiquitous in our society, yet they are widely misunderstood. Many of these misunderstandings arise from widespread lack of understanding of the technical basis for what algorithms are and how they function, but even experts often don’t understand how they work, only that they do in many situations. This lack of understanding means that there are both rational and irrational calls for caution as they are adopted further. To balance the benefits from technology adoption and caution, we need to approach these issues carefully and consider what algorithms are being used for and what underlying technology and data . . . [more]

In my professional experience working as a law librarian in multiple types of institutions, most of the time a question about or related to a situation happening in a foreign country or at the international level comes primarily through one scenario: the researcher read about it in an online media outlet, newspaper, article, blog, tweet, etc. and wants to know more. Understanding, finding relevant sources and making sense of a rapidly (d)evolving and fast moving situation in a foreign country or internationally is an incredibly complicated and labor intensive type of research, no matter how much experience you have in . . . [more]

Near the beginning of every academic year, I ask students in my in Legal Research and Writing class (LRW) to complete a short in-class assignment. I provide them with news articles that cover legal issues and ask them to find the decision or legislation that is being discussed. At this point in the year, students have typically only recently been introduced to both open and proprietary legal research platforms. They are inclined to keyword search the same way that they might on Google. This is usually ineffective and gives them varying results across platforms. The point of the activity is . . . [more]

What is the most important part of your job? Can you answer that question immediately, or do you struggle to articulate just one aspect that is the most important? Did you choose the part that is the most important for you or the most important for your organization as a whole, or for your clients/students/library patrons?

Last week I was challenged to reassess the tasks that make up my job. As a law librarian at an academic institution in the third year of this pandemic, my team can be susceptible to the same feelings of burnout that are plaguing workers . . . [more]

I wrote two drafts for SLAW this month. I wrote and rewrote a piece on the pros and cons of committee work. I wrote and rewrote a piece on tips for tracing legislative histories. Both of these may be shared in the future, but as I was writing I realized I was feeling burnt out after a great, but incredibly busy academic year. All I wanted to do was have a coffee and complete the daily wordle puzzle.

So, if you are feeling burnt out, having a hard time focusing, or just want to take a quick break, my gift . . . [more]

On March 3, 2022, the Arctic Council became the latest collateral casualty to the Russian invasion in Ukraine. A mere week after Russian troops began invading and bombarding Ukraine, seven members of the Arctic Council (Canada, United States, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland) condemned the belligerent actions of its eighth member, Russia. Their condemnation also included pausing the work of the Council as well as all of its subsidiaries immediately and until further notice. The indefinite hold on the activities of such an important forum for international cooperation will inevitably have severe impact regionally and internationally on salient topics, . . . [more]

There is more than one way to approach setting standards for the writing and formatting of documents. An important thing to keep in mind is having a continuous awareness of, and sensitivity to, the use of text within our changing world, and to build style guides as tools that can help reflect our values, rather than a set of rules that never advance.

In my work at CanLII, I’ve had the opportunity to develop a style guide to help meet the needs of our collaborative writing projects. I also think about writing standards in my volunteer work as the associate . . . [more]

[What follows is an imagined dialogue between a lawyer and a librarian, regarding a fictional loose-leaf publication]

Lawyer: I’d like to see what you have in the library on the crime of jabberwock-slaying, please.

Librarian (without consulting the catalog): Yes, the seminal treatise on the topic is Carroll on Jabberwocks, shelved under call number… you know what, I’ll just grab it off the shelf for you.

Lawyer: Thanks, I’ve never really understood what call numbers are, anyway.

[Librarian returns carrying four heavy, ugly binders]

Lawyer: So, which one should I use?

Librarian: Well, you just . . . [more]

In my role at the Sir James Dunn Law Library, I help facilitate both the creation and dissemination of scholarly knowledge through law journals. As a result, I have developed many questions and curiosities surrounding scholarly publishing practices. While the larger ones require empirical research, a handful seemed easy to answer based on readily available data. Using the information available on the websites of each peer-reviewed law journal affiliated with and published by a Canadian law school, I answered the following questions:

1. How many peer-reviewed law journals are affiliated with Canadian law schools and published in-house?*
2. How many of these

I teach a class at the University of Arizona College of Law called, Foreign, Comparative and International Legal Research. In my class, I discuss with the students the different ways in which this type of advanced legal research is dependent on constantly moving variables and components. Beyond a handout of the top five sources to consult, I instead strive to make the students understand that they need to create a research strategy, keep track of changes on foreign and international law, and consult a significant amount of non-legal information. All of this needs to be done while always evaluating . . . [more]

At an early point in my career as a librarian, I became exasperated with colleagues who loved teaching legal citation, and I proposed holding a ceremonial burning of some copies of the Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation at the end of that year of law school. I still believe that our students might find it cathartic to burn their bluebooks just before graduation. Thankfully, my colleague reminded me that book burning is antithetical to the core values of librarianship, and over time I hated citations less as I began to understand them better.

This week I found myself unexpectedly . . . [more]

Last year I was interviewed by Dominique Garingan for her dissertation on algorithmic literacy, and thought I would share my thoughts that arose in relation to that conversation with you here too. She also published an article about her dissertation findings in the most recent issue of Canadian Law Library Review: “Advanced Technologies and Algorithmic Literacy: Exploring Insights from the Legal Information Profession“.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “algorithm” as “a step-by-step procedure for solving a problem or accomplishing some end“. Algorithmic literacy, in turn, is the understanding of how computer systems apply algorithms so that users . . . [more]