I’m at the CanLII meeting at Osgoode Hall here in Toronto to learn more about their new legislation database. At the moment the speakers are thanking their funders.

Ivan Mokanov is presenting SATO, section and time-based operations. The first simple demo called up the Human Rights Code that was in force on a given date. Above the text of the legislation is a linked list of all possible versions, making comparison easy. The screen will print properly with sections aligned.

Any statute or section can be noted up. (Results can be refined by narrowing searc terms.)

The third tab of . . . [more]

SLAW has had some recent posts on the availability of the works of Charles Darwin being available online (here and here), presumably as a result of tomorrow being the 200th anniversary of his birth.

Likely because of that anniversary, PBS in Buffalo/Toronto broadcast last night a documentary called “Intelligent Design on Trial.” The documentary can be viewed in clips at the foregoing link where there are also transcripts and extra video clips and links.

The show was a documentary on the attempt by the Dover Area School Board (in rural Pennsylvania) in late 2004 to . . . [more]

Statistics Canada has just released a report on legal aid spending in the 2007/08 year for all but three jurisdictions (Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island and Nunavut). The Daily summarizes the results. As far as overall amounts go,

[a]fter accounting for inflation, spending was up from the previous year in six jurisdictions, with Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, and Northwest Territories reporting the largest increases at 10% each. Spending was down in New Brunswick, Quebec and Yukon and unchanged in Ontario.

Precise data (1983 – 2007) is contained in four tables:

revenues, by type of revenue; expenditures, by type of . . . [more]

Dr. Ben Goldacre writes a weekly column for the Guardian called Bad Science, in which he “skewers” journalists, politicians, advertisers and others who misrepresent, make up or ignore scientific evidence concerning the sorts of things that concern us all. He also maintains a blog by the same name, where he can (and does) expatiate on these issues. One of his recurring themes is the awful mishandling of vaccination data by the media and, consequently, the various vaccination panics that spring up around the world.

In this connection he writes about an interview he gave on LBC Radio in . . . [more]

Thanks to my partner David Stratas for a tip-off concerning major changes to the SCC website announced today. . . . [more]

Via CALL-L, there is a new policy at the Supreme Court of Canada, effective today for access to court records.
The most interesting part? Webcasts!

In addition to the records already listed in this policy, members of the public shall have remote access to those court records, or portions thereof, listed in this subsection:

* the electronic version of any factum on an appeal filed on or after February 9, 2009, subject to the following conditions. An electronic version of the factum must be available. The factum must not be subject to any limitation on access by court order or

The folks at the Toronto law firm Hicks Morley are leaps and bounds ahead of most other firms in their wiki use. They are using the wiki-based platform ThoughtFarmer as their whole intranet. This has had advantages, including being quick to set up and cost effective compared to other intranet or portal platforms.

In October Knowledge Management Specialist Heather Colman made a presentation to both the Toronto and New York Legal KM Groups, and we subsequently invited her to present at Toronto Wiki Tuesdays. These were her slides: . . . [more]

With the renovations progressing here at the DMP Law Library, most of our print has moved off site, and is harder to get. To compensate the students, I’ve been giving some instruction in electronic-only legal research, and even though I’m immersed in this topic every day, it is still surprising to me just how much can be accomplished online. Generally, of course, Legislation that has any historical aspect still requires the print for most jurisdictions, though CanLII’s new point-in-time functions are great, and some jurisdictions offer this sort of detail online.

For Canadian case law, just about anything you want . . . [more]

This story will warm the heart of any law librarian (or any other kind of librarian).

Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, the US Airways pilot who made a miraculous emergency landing on the Hudson River in New York on January 15, was worried about a book he had borrowed from the library at California State University.

The book happened to end up on the bottom of the river in the cargo hold of the aircraft.

But that did not stop our hero.

He contacted the library and asked for an extension. Pretty conscientious, eh?

The library, of course, waived the overdue . . . [more]

1. Irwin Law has announced the development of its own online e-books platform. As of July 31, 2009, their current licensing agreement with LexisNexis Quicklaw will come to an end, and digital versions of all Irwin Law texts will be exclusively available on their proprietary platform as of the next day. Jeffrey Miller, Irwin publisher, makes it clear in his announcement to current authors that:

We respect the work of our authors and recognize our responsibility to publish in a manner that enhances their return and their reputation, while at the same time protecting their intellectual property rights. Finally, our

I will be speaking later this month on February 25, 2009, in New York at the Ark Group conference Best Practices & Management Strategies for Law Firm Library & Information Service Centers.

I chose to speak at the session entitled “Risk & Innovation: Aligning Technology with Explicit Business Goals” in part to give and receive ideas on some of the technology-related initiatives we are undertaking in my department (and I will not necessarily focus just on technology since such a focus can distort the importance of non-technological ideas).

From the 40,000 foot level, innovation with technology in law libraries . . . [more]

Ross E. Davies, of George Mason University School of Law, has a brief piece called “Law Review Circulation” available on SSRN. The article has been summarized by Inside Higher Ed, and, simply, reveals a serious drop in the the paid circulation for the “top 15” U.S. law reviews, where the figures are available (as they are required by the U.S. Postal Service to be).

One example will suffice here: The Harvard Law Journal’s paid circulation over time was as follows:

1979-80: 8,760 \ 1987-88: 7325 \ 1997-98: 4367 \ 2007-08: 2,610

This is not surprising, perhaps, given the . . . [more]