It is bound to happen. In trying to move an idea like open access (to research and scholarship) forward, you can reach a point where it seems that such efforts are contributing to the problem, rather than being part of the solution. It would be overstating it to observe that when Moses demanded, “Let my people go,” in ancient Egypt, the Pharaoh’s heart only hardened. Let me just say that at times just before the dawn, there can appear to be little hope of light.

Or so it seemed to me, when the editor at Educational Theory emailed me with . . . [more]

The issue of e-mail management is now old hat for anyone involved in the practice of law. Rather than asking whether lawyers use it, it is a story when lawyers choose not to use it. The world has grown more complicated, though, as we try to figure out where to place our energy integrating new technologies, like Twitter or Google’s Wave, into our work. Even our choices about how to use e-mail have expanded.

E-mail often reminds me of books. It is a technology that, for all its faults, remains a tremendously useful way to share information. More importantly, there . . . [more]

Law firms are deserts of positive feedback. At so many of our law firms no news is good news and critical feedback is the only kind going around.

As a lawyer coach I am a woman with a mission: To help make our law firms better places to work. One of the most powerful tools for accomplishing this is something called positive acknowledgement.

Positive acknowledgement is about giving the gift our attention by recognizing when someone has done something well. Positive acknowledgement works when you notice someone’s strengths or what they have accomplished and you tell them that you have . . . [more]

At the end of September, four members of the Ontario Government Libraries Council (OGLC) presented a workshop at Showcase Ontario, the Ontario government’s enormous technology and information conference. The session was about how to use non-traditional media such as blogs and Twitter for current awareness, and included two practical case studies from the Office of the Fire Marshal and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. Registrations for the session topped 400. Since then, various members of the panel have been asked to make presentations to other audiences, to contribute content to articles reporting on social media use in government, and . . . [more]

The lines in the sand seem firmly drawn when it comes to social media blocking. Some firms have taken the view that accessing websites such as Facebook during work hours is an attack on business productivity, and have locked down access. Detractors identify the fact that any personal smart phone can access these sites, and that blocking is not only ineffective, but is taking young lawyers ‘off-grid’ and restricting their ability to communicate with peers and business contacts.

So who’s right? Unfortunately, the answer may be everyone.

The Case for Lockdown

Let’s start this piece by facing facts. Having worked . . . [more]

If you happen to subscribe to my Twitter feed, you’ll notice that I regularly post links to stories of interest in the legal press. If you look closely, you’ll notice that a great many of those stories pertain to developments in very large law firms. That’s not because I’m fascinated by BigLaw or because I think my subscriber base is either. It’s because that’s what gets published. The legal press pays a disproportionate amount of attention to large law firms — as do we all.

The best-known legal periodical, The American Lawyer, is so tightly intertwined with large . . . [more]

I always laugh when I see the seemingly inevitable use of “whither” in library-related publications. It just as inevitably suggests “wither” and reminds me that we are a profession at some risk. It might seem unfair to pick on word choice, but “whither” always strikes me as being out of touch.

Law libraries are at risk of becoming similarly out of touch. Recent research on behalf of the Special Libraries Association by Outsell, Inc. and Fleishman-Hillard suggests that special libraries may be out of step with their organizations. While SLA’s Alignment project is focused on positioning the association . . . [more]

The Canadian government has been holding this summer a public “copyright consultation” on proposed legislative changes to the country’s copyright act, with the consultation period, featuring town hall meetings and online submissions and comments, now drawing to a close on September 13, 2009. For the most sensible of approaches to copyright reform, many of us simply turn to Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa. He is currently running, as a public service, a Speak Out on Copyright site. A recent posting cites Industry Minister Tony Clement’s announcement that, following . . . [more]

Have you ever had a moment in your career where you wanted to run screaming from the building? When you entered the office on a Monday took a look at the work piled on the table and shuddered? I know that all of us at times do work that at best we can tolerate and at worst we despise. While many of us have experienced these moments in our careers, when they become a daily occurrence it is crucial to recognise what they represent: Flashing red lights indicating that action is required to shift your professional practice into more satisfying . . . [more]

Once you remove content publishing from the equation, there are typically four major entry points into law firm websites: the homepage, practice pages, lawyer profiles and regional office pages. For this month’s web law connected column, I thought it might be interesting to offer comments on each of these pages, and issues I’ve seen from a search marketing perspective.

The law firm homepage: The firm homepage is obviously the most important entry point for a firm website and can often be a prime battleground when stakeholders are trying to ensure the strongest aspects of the firm are reflected in . . . [more]

“Eighty percent of the poor in the United States are unable to afford a lawyer or find pro bono help for their civil legal problems, according to the American Bar Association.” That sentence, from an American Lawyer article last month, is not only embarrassing. It’s also an omen.

The article in question, titled “Unmet Needs,” was part of a special series on pro bono in the United States, including the top 100 pro bono-friendly law firms and a powerful critique of big-firm pro bono by Deborah Rhode. The latter piece highlighted how pro bono at too many . . . [more]

The Washington Times is calling it “Iran’s Twitter Revolution”, as the largest political demonstrations since the 1979 revolution have unfolded in Iran since the highly questionable re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced on June 13, 2009. To date, at least 20 people have lost their lives and hundreds of journalists, academics and activists have been arrested. The Iranian government initially closed down the telephone system in an effort to forestall social protest, only to see the streets fill, day after day, through early June, supported by cyberactivism which the government then tried to curtail: “The [Iranian] hackers in particular . . . [more]