Osgoode Hall Law School has launched its first fully online journal, the Osgoode Hall Review of Law and Policy. Edited by students and offering student articles for the most part, the Review will also publish in each issue articles on law or policy by practising lawyers or academics. This is the table of contents of the first issue [(2008) 1 Osgoode Hall Rev.L.Pol’y]:

• D. Vaver, “Chocolate, Copyright, Confusion: Intellectual Property and the Supreme Court of Canada” [PDF]
• A. Scotchmer et al., “The Right to Counsel: Policy Reasons for Fundamental Reforms to Promote Access” [PDF]

My time at Cornell is flying by ((My first week was too busy to allow time to post, but I have several items in the works)), and I’ve put together lots of notes on the law library. However, today I’m going to post about how Cornell University Libraries has developed a wonderful system for creating digital resources. The Digital Initiatives page provides access to the their many projects and partnerships. Central to the operation is the Digital Consulting and Production Services unit (DCAPS). . . . [more]

For me, the Library of Congress subject headings have been a source of bafflement, perplexity — and to a lesser extent, wonderment — ever since I wandered into the stacks, way back in university. I suppose the creature is a little like you and me, the product of evolution’s twists and unexpected turns working on a legacy laid down when the world was a very very different place to produce a working, if sub-optimal, just-so animal. Now, should you want to use the subject headings to actually find something, you might find a little help quite useful. Bernhard Eversberg at . . . [more]

Ted Tjaden‘s excellent online guide on LLRX to doing legal research in Canada has been updated. The sub-heads are as follows:

• Doing Legal Research in Canada — April 4, 2008
• Canadian Primary Legal Resources — April 1, 2008
• Introduction: The Canadian Legal System — April 1, 2008
• Canadian Secondary Legal Resources — April 1, 2008
• Canadian Legal Organizations — April 1, 2008
• Canadian Legal Publishers — April 1, 2008
• Canadian Legal Research: By Topic — April 1, 2008

Props to Ted. . . . [more]

The Ontario Court of Appeal has gone off the air. Video coverage of certain appeals, which started last September (see Ontario Court of Appeal is Webcasting on Slaw) has apparently stopped and, more’s the pity, the archive of past hearings has gone. There’s nothing on the webcasting page now except the promises you have to make to get admitted to the screening room.

Watching a court of appeal in action is hardly up there with a viewing of the Sopranos or Six Feet Under, but it has its own attractions, and it would be a shame if the project was . . . [more]

The US SEC website finally has RSS feeds. There’s one for the latest filings received and processed, and one for press releases issued by the SEC.

Thanks to Dealbreaker for noticing. . . . [more]

Scribd is a free service that lets you put your document or image files online, where they are available to the public. Now Scribd is offering to scan your print documents and put those online — for free. You mail in your documents, wait some weeks, and then enjoy your words in pixels. Even accounting for the fact that Scribd is in complete charge of the project and so can move as slowly and as selectively as it wishes, this is a remarkable offer.

…and it got me wondering: would this be a good way to put public domain case . . . [more]

Earlier this week, the President of the Treasury Board tabled the 2008-09 Reports on Plans and Priorities in the House of Commons on behalf of 93 federal departments and agencies.

The 2008-09 Reports on Plans and Priorities (RPPs) are departmental expenditure plans that elaborate on the information contained in the 2008-09 Main Estimates tabled on February 28, 2008.

These RPPs set out departmental priorities, provide performance measurement indicators, and explain a department’s expected results.

The 2008-2009 RPP for the Supreme Court of Canada is included in the list.

One of the big priorities is “court modernization” which includes:

• modernization of

All is well at the Faculty of Information Studies at the University of Toronto. I was a guest lecturer at the FIS 2133 Law Librarianship and Legal Literature course taught by colleague John Papadopoulos.

I was very impressed at the class’s willingness to discuss and debate issues surrounding knowledge management and the role that librarians can play, particular in a law firm environment.

We discussed such things as: (i) document management, information management, records management and knowledge management and whether and how they were different; (iii) the role – good and bad – that technology plays in knowledge-sharing and . . . [more]

I’m on a two-week trip to Cornell Law Library courtesy of the New England Law Library Consortium (NELLCO). I’m here to check out how they do their work, to learn a little about US law and collections, and to smuggle the ideas back across the border. Just to prove that I’m actually here, and not pulling your collective leg, here are a few snaps:

That’s the law school in the background. Here’s a better shot of the main building, Myron Taylor Hall:

and here’s one of a student at work in the Gould Reading Room:

I’ve got a . . . [more]

That’s the question raised in a webcast from Outlaw, consisting of an interview with BAILII executive director Joe Ury.

The article based on the Interview, announces that Bailii will shortly publish the 3000 most important decisions in the English common law:

Bailii approached academics at universities all over the UK and asked them to list the most important rulings in their area of expertise. It then sought permission to publish those rulings one by one.

“It’s been a long slog,” said Ury. He said that the project was returned a list of 2,600 judgments, and that it has . . . [more]

We’ve discussed the transition of the Canada Law Book Company caselaw materials from Lexis-Nexis to a new BestCase product providing electronic access to almost all the caselaw that CLB has ever produced ((Due to licensing restrictions in the arrangements that CLB has with Thomson-West, the Canadian Patent Reporter is excluded)).

Today it launched. Tomorrow Lexis-Nexis’ Canadian materials will have an entirely new set of source materials.

Along with the other Toronto research lawyers, I had an advance look at the interface last week.

The good news is that in an amazingly short period of time, CLB has managed to develop . . . [more]