OA News points to an interview with the head of Harvard Library’s Office of Scholarly Communication on the prospects for OA and related issues at Harvard. . . . [more]

Make your dreams come true….

♫ When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
When you wish upon a star
Your dream comes true .. ♫

Music by Leigh Harline, lyrics by Ned Washington.

Despite all the assistance from technology and the labour-saving devices available today, I don’t believe that most of us are really any closer to achieving our in-our-heart-of-heart’s dreams…you know what I mean…the ones that you think about at quiet moments..such as at dawn or gazing into a sunset.

I have talked to many lawyers …many many lawyers – who in the words . . . [more]

Here is a link to an interesting segment in Fox Business’s digital innovations scheme. This time it’s about FastCase’s challenge to the empires of West/Thomson in Eagan, MN and Reed Elsevier in Dayton OH. The interview talks about possible patents on the search algorithm, but nothing is on the USPTO yet. . . . [more]

Canadian lawyers should familiarize themselves with the Homeland Security policy on inspections of laptops at the border released a couple of weeks ago. Note the provisions at E (3) on claims of legal privilege. . . . [more]

Law library podcast The Law Librarian is set to continue recording next Friday, August 8th at 3 pm CST. The show is hosted by Richard Leiter and Brian Striman, and we first made note of it back in May.

Today’s guest is Margie Maes (some readers may know her as Margie Axtmann), Executive Director of the Legal Information Preservation Alliance, a committee of AALL. Margie is also an active CALL member; I first met her on a CALL Vendor Liaison Committee panel a number of years ago when she was serving on AALL‘s equivalent . . . [more]

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has made available free a 138 page e-book, “THE FBI: A Centennial History, 1908-2008.” You may read it online (HTML format) or download the PDF files for each chapter or for the book as a whole; I’d recommend PDF if only for the photographs throughout, which are absent from the HTML version. The various chapters are as follows:

Dedication/Foreword
The Nation Calls, 1908-1923
The FBI and the American Gangster, 1924-1938
World War, Cold War, 1939 to 1953
And Justice for All, 1954-1971
Crime and Corruption Across America, 1972-1988
A World of Trouble,

I’ve just released a new blog watch website over at Stem; this time tracking 54 different law blogs on the topic of DUI law.

A while ago here on Slaw I published a Yahoo pipes tutorial, and tried to show how we can take a set of authoritative feeds for a particular topic and mix them together as a current awareness tool. This new site is a good example of a subject-based feed mix. It’s also a good example of how feed mixing might help for the development internal collections; not simply because it pulls together like subject . . . [more]

I was off for a couple of weeks and am quite proud to say that I did not access my email for 10 days, which is up there with my personal bests. I did have 266 messages in my inbox when I returned but it was worth it. I still find it nice to know that there are places where wireless signals aren’t bouncing off of me and I can’t plugin.

Upon getting plugged back in this week, it has been interesting to watch the goings on with Facebook, Scrabulous and Hasbro. I find it curious that Hasbro has . . . [more]

Fee Fie Foe Firm Canada is a new custom search engine in beta for searching across Canadian law firm websites.

It indexes content from all manner of law firms, big and small. This includes practice group and individual profiles, press releases, news releases, case analysis, and publications such as newsletters.

I have commented on the Library Boy blog on a few other sources for finding law firm newsletters:

• We need a central repository for Canadian law firm newsletters and bulletins (March 8, 2005)
• Tracking Law Firm Newsletters With Linex Legal (July 31, 2007)
• Mondaq – Another Service For Tracking Law

As I’m sure many of you are already aware, LexisNexis has received some interesting press lately. In the July 28, 2008 report issued by the U.S. Department of Justice, a LexisNexis search used by a DOJ employee is reprinted (on p. 21). This search was apparently used for vetting potential employees:

[First name of a candidate]! and pre/2 [last name of a candidate] w/7 bush or gore or republican! or democrat! or charg! or accus! or criticiz! or blam! or defend! or iran contra or clinton or spotted owl or florida recount or sex! or controvers! or racis! or fraud!

Out-Googling Google.

by David J. Bilinsky

July 29, 2008.

♫ I tried my best to let you know
That I’m not trying to test you
It’s just so hard to let you go
When I have nothing against you…♫

Words and music by Midtown

It was just a matter of time. It isn’t that I have anything against you, Google, indeed I have learned so much from you, but in time, all things must end. Alas, I have found another.

Cuil (pronounced cool) is the new well, Cool search engine in town. And she is big – very big . . . [more]

What with the arrest of Radovan Karadžić, world attention will likely return for a moment at least to the Hague, and to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in particular. One way to stay in touch with developments at the ICTY and, indeed, all international justice doings at the Hague, is to frequent the Hague Justic Portal. Available in Dutch, French and English, the portal is the creation of The Hague Academic Coalition, a consortium of various institutes in the Hague. . . . [more]