Google has pulled out of its proposed advertising deal with Yahoo! due to fears of government antitrust litigation. Details are available here on The Official Google Blog. . . . [more]

Further to an earlier SLAW posting on blogs by library technicians, I wanted to mention the Library technician dialog blog by colleagues Brenda Wong and Karen Sawatzky that I had previously overlooked. Recent posts cover such topics as lifelong learning, Twitter (on my “to do” list, long overdue, but I remain skeptical) and library operations and procedures. Thanks Brenda and Karen for your perspectives. . . . [more]

WikiBooks was mentioned here sometime ago on Slaw.

I recently stumbled across the site and see that there is some more development, including some law-related books.

For example, an “Introduction to Canadian Law” has been started here (but is still very bare) and there is a start on Canadian legal citation here.

There is more US content, and some topics tagged with a “green box” indicate comprehensive coverage/treatment. There were 3 such titles:

US Copyright Law

US Patent Law

US Trademark Law . . . [more]

The Amsterdam Law Forum, an online law journal from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, has just released its first volume, which focuses on the theme, “Inclusion and Exclusion in Western Immigration.”

The A.L.F. strives to offer an online platform for legal and policy commentary articles, with an academic character, yet accessible to a broader public , and furthermore serve as a forum for academic publications by young legal scholars…

The student-managed journal is not peer-reviewed at the moment, though they plan to become so in the future.

Not only is the ALF open access, but it’s also published using open source . . . [more]

The recent announcement by Carswell that its multi-volume print work “Words and Phrases Judicially Defined in Canadian Courts and Tribunals” is available online means that both Westlawecarswell and LexisNexis Quicklaw now offer access to edited extracts of of the meaning of words and phrases as discussed in judicial decisions.

“Plugged in” legal researchers should note however that this does not mean that the same information is now available on both services. Each database is a unique compilation of words and phrases, with different operating guidelines and scope, and different sources of content. Depending upon your need, both services may have . . . [more]

I stumbled across part of the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition website, where I found a good swathe of the 6th edition of the Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation available online in PDF. The parts that are up are, of course, those that deal with “international materials.” Still, you’ll find nearly 75 pages, all in all. . . . [more]

A recent article in Library Journal caught my eye: “Living Library” Debuts in Santa Monica ((Library Journal, 10/20/2008)) As the article explains the living library movement invites library users to ‘book’ meetings with individuals with special interests, beliefs or experiences.

Though I can’t find proof of this in her written work, Connie Crosby once said that she pays attention to trends in public libraries that could apply to law library services. This memory glimer (hopefully I am attributing the credit correctly) says to me: how would the construct of a living library help my firm? What would that look . . . [more]

For my first post, I’ll keep it brief. We’re in the early stages of planning our second Intranet project, using SharePoint 2007. With a renewed focus on the importance of customization, effective search, intuitive navigation, and metrics, we’re clear on the new direction we want to take. What’s not clear at this point is governance – who should own it? Library/KM? IT? Administration? Everyone? Who “owns” the Intranet in your firm? . . . [more]

Teresa Miguel at Yale Law Library’s Foreign and International Blog posted her review and endorsement for the International Law Video Library yesterday. A very interesting project, and great use of video to capture content, knowledge and history.

Teresa’s post also included the following excellent examples from the collection:

• Thomas Buergenthal, Judge at the International Court of Justice, speaks about reservations to treaties.
• Phillippe Kirsch, President of the International Criminal Court, sat down for an interview in September 2005 in which he introduced himself, and went on to give the historical background of the creation of the International Criminal

A U.S. company, CrimeReports.com, takes statistics given to it by various police departments and geolocates the instances on a Google map. So far as I can tell, Ottawa is the only Canadian city to enlist the company’s services. The Ottawa crime map sets out markers for various crimes — breaking and entering, theft, etc. — the nature of which can be controlled by a selection panel, so that, for instance, you could look at the location of all thefts from a vehicle. You can, as well, adjust the area, the date and the number of instances you wish to . . . [more]

A thanks to colleague Brenda Wong for letting me know of two new “social network” search engines mentioned at a recent SLA event she attended. I was not aware of either. They are: Spokeo and me.dium.

However, maybe I am getting too old. Both seem geared towards the “younger crowd”, at least based on their own descriptions of their products but the first may help with due diligence type of investigations and the second appears to be taking advantage of the “wisdom of the crowd” philosophy.

Spokeo, for example, features a picture of teenage girls whispering in each other’s . . . [more]

Govtrack.us is a site aimed at shedding light on the often byzantine operations of Washington. And it seems remarkably useful for doing so. It’s a portal to a comprehensive database of legislation that is either in the works or recently passed.

Each legislator has his or her own page with personal info and a list of all of the bills they have recently sponsored. For instance, Sen. Ted Stevens’ page shows that he sponsored Bill S. 94, the Gasoline Consumer Anti-price-gouging Protection Act, which was introduced in January 2007, while Sen. Barack Obama was sponsoring the Oil SENSE Act . . . [more]