If you have print assets that you want to publish on the web, until now you had two options. The first one: the scanned material is OCR-ed, the text is then extracted into an editable text format (Word or XML), formatting and structure are applied throughout, and then the document is converted to a web-friendly format, like HTML. This is an expensive process even if done offshore. The second option: you can simply publish an OCR-ed scanned PDF file and accept that it will be clumsily rendered, not interactive, somewhat searchable, and in the case of large documents, your browser . . . [more]

In 2001, I and an undergraduate student at the University of British Columbia started an intellectual property experiment with the original intent of this area of law. I didn’t think of it that way at the time, but now that fifteen years have passed and the results of this imagined experiment could be said to be in, I want to set it out here in those terms (warning: unabashed hubris to follow). What we set in motion in 2001 and have worked on steadily since then is a piece of software. I sketched out workflow and wrote the words, while . . . [more]

One aspect of having a great affection for law publishing is that I have a tendency to search for its characteristics and qualities elsewhere. For me, it sets a general standard for non-fiction and published information provision. Perhaps not surprisingly, therefore, I find myself looking for snippets of law publishing in many unlikely places and am pleased to find it frequently. My enjoyment, not long ago, of Philip Wood’s The Fall of the Priests and the Rise of the Lawyers, in which the author stresses the centrality of law to human survival was, in part, for such reasons. Lawyers . . . [more]

Some would say that in term of access to legal information, the labour sector has somehow been left behind. For sure, you can access labour codes and regulations on CanLII, as well as the latest judicial decisions addressing wrongful dismissal, but other sources are fundamental to the practice of labour lawyers. In a field where much depends on negotiation, collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) – contracts between unions and employers – are as important as any other document. Unfortunately this source of law is not as easy to locate and use online as one could hope.

Typically, the electronic version of . . . [more]

Since joining this “Canadian cooperative weblog,” as Simon Fodden identified SLAW some years ago, in 2008, I have returned to this theme of cooperation in scholarly publishing a number of times (I discovered doing a search of this well-indexed site).

In 2010, for example, I wrote about an idea that Rowly Lorimer, then director of the Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing, had for a Canadian scholarly publishing cooperative. This country’s academic journals would be supported by the libraries and funding councils enabling them to share their content openly and freely, without having to restrict access to subscribers. I . . . [more]

It’s too easy to be negative about almost everything but for the most part it’s a lazy approach that requires little thought and analysis. Particularly when considering and discussing law publishing, the industry’s faults and downsides often come quickly to the fore. Sometimes this is justified. However, for present purposes the objective is to focus on what would be, for me, the ideal law publishing business. By “ideal”, I mean having those characteristics that make its objectives, efforts and results hugely satisfying and rewarding for customers, those working for such a business, its suppliers and in the interests . . . [more]

While not unexpected, the announcement by Eric Appleby that Maritime Law Book will be closing its doors in November 2016, is still a bit of a shock. No one has done more than Eric and his indomitable team at Maritime Law Book to transform the nature of the case law reporting in this country. Unfortunately, access to free case law online and cost cutting by customers have combined to undermine the business model for Maritime Law Book, making its demise an inevitability.

When simple access was the issue

Few will remember a time when access to case law was extremely . . . [more]

The author Naomi Baron in her book “Words Onscreen: The fate of Reading in a Digital World” includes the following quote at page 198:

“The book as such is sacred. One does not throw books away”.

Naomi Baron states that the Germans and the French “don’t throw out …. bread and books.

But consider that many law libraries are now computer rooms. And some libraries are destroying books. A professor at the UNB law school told me that their library has shredded a series of print law reports. Also an Ontario bookbinding firm told me that Queen’s University is now . . . [more]

It always amuses me when I see light-hearted references to the rather tedious-sounding Project Management Triangle (alternatively called the Triple Constraint or Iron Triangle). Much fun can be made of the idea that in relation to products, services or outcomes, the choice is of quality, speed or price but only any two out of three can be had. For entertainment purposes it can be applied to restaurants, plumbing services, professional advice, airline travel and the like. However, it makes me wonder about the veracity of the notion and whether or not it is applied or applicable in relation to . . . [more]

I’m delighted to be able to offer a guest blog from Rebecca Kennison. Rebecca is the principal of K|N Consultants and has worked extensively in scholarly publishing. What follows is a remarkably acute analysis of Elsevier’s journal pricing practices that she recently contributed to the Open Scholarship Initiative listserv. (This version has been slightly edited to provide additional clarification.) Rebecca is responding to a post by an Elsevier representative, and yet what she has written struck me as speaking to all of us interested in how the major corporate publishers are handling the shift to open access.

Rebecca is . . . [more]

In Canada and elsewhere, we have seen a seemingly endless series of reorganizations in the multinational legal publishing houses. The pattern is one characterized by the acquisition of smaller legal publishing houses, followed by serial changes in their reporting lines, and ending with their disappearance altogether, as old established brands are dropped and replaced by the corporate brand. These changes are attempts to conceal a sad truth – that “global legal publishing” has proven to be a bit of a bust. Was it a bad business idea in the first place, or merely a good idea that was overwhelmed by . . . [more]

Who was Confucius?

See the book Confucius: And the World he Created by Michael Schuman (2015). Many of the words and phrases below are those of Michael Schuman.

Confucius was born in China in 551 B.C. and died in 479 B.C. He was a teacher, politician and philosopher. In Asia his influence ranks with Abraham, Jesus and Buddha. He spent most of his professional life teaching – he taught the wisdom of Chinese antiquity, a timeless code of morality. He handed down the standards for human morality.

Confucianism offers a moral code to guide human behavior analogous to the Ten . . . [more]