How many of us have spent late nights here?….. 

 The Toronto Star is reporting today that the University of Toronto’s Robarts Library will be receiving a new $75 million upgrade for the first time in 35 years. The Ontario government is also expected to announce today a $15 million grant to go towards this project. The revitalization and expansion plan includes:

• a new wing with over 1,000 new study spaces
• improvement of over 1,000 existing study spaces
• adding over 1,000 more study spaces to the existing building
• outdoor ampitheatre-style seating
• the removal of some of the upper concrete walls to

Over on his Law Firm Web Strategy blog Steve Matthews announced that JD Supra has been launched. I had a preview of this service back in September, so I had a fresh look am pleased to see the further development of this new service.

JD Supra allows for law firms, law schools and other legal organizations and individuals to share documents. Having a name behind the documents lends credibility to them, while the contributors get to be known for having expertise in their respective areas. This is combined with a profile that will drive traffic back to their websites. A . . . [more]

From Lo-Fi Librarian, and apropos of the discussion about the future of CLB, QL, etc., a note that BAILII has started a collection of secondary legal materials. It includes currently journals here and here, and the full text of two law books for anyone to read free of charge. . . . [more]

Log this one into the cool picture category… This photo from the Flickr account of Jason Kurylo shows UBC’s ASRS (Automated Storage and Retrieval System), which allows millions of extra books to be stored in half the space of a traditional shelving.

In unison now… Oooooh, Aaaaaah! :) . . . [more]

The National Centre for First Nations Governance has announced the publication of “The Jurisdiction of Inherent Right Aboriginal Governments” [PDF] by Osgoode Hall Law School Scholar Kent McNeil. From the press release:

The inherent right of the Aboriginal peoples to govern themselves has become a generally accepted aspect of Canadian constitutional law.

But what is the scope of the governmental authority, or jurisdiction, that can be exercised by inherent right Aboriginal governments? And how does the jurisdiction of Aboriginal governments interact with the jurisdiction of other governments in Canada, especially the federal and provincial governments?

This important research

No time for long posts, but three small timbits from the news today.

Job cuts announced at Reed Elsevier, the owner of Lexis-Nexis.

Reed Elsevier, the Anglo-Dutch media group, is drawing up plans to axe more than 1,000 jobs as part of a continuing efficiency drive, The Sunday Telegraph has learned.

The company, which owns the LexisNexis information service and the medical journal, The Lancet, is understood to be preparing to cut the jobs over the next couple of years as it centralises functions such as procurement, human resources and IT across the group. Analysts expect the job cuts

As Slaw readers know, effective April 1, 2008, Canada Law Book is pulling its law reports and case summaries from Quicklaw Lexis Nexis ((Dominion Law Reports (since 1912)
Canadian Criminal Cases (since 1898)
Labour Arbitration Cases (since 1948)
Canadian Patent Reporter (since 1941)
All-Canada Weekly Summaries
Weekly Criminal Bulletin
Canadian Law List
Alberta Civil and Criminal Cases
Federal Court of Appeal Decisions
BC Civil Cases
BC Criminal Cases
BC Labour Arbitrations
BC Labour Relations Board Decisions
Canadian Labour Arbitration Summaries
Saskatchewan Civil and Criminal Cases
Supreme Court of Canada Decisions
Manitoba Civil and Criminal Cases))

CLB today announced a new . . . [more]

Amazing what retired Canadian family law professors get up to.

The Law Foundation of Ontario has launched a project on access to legal information and legal services by linguistic minorities and persons living in rural or remote areas. It recognizes the challenges faced in gaining access to legal information and services by persons who do not speak English or French and persons living in rural or remote areas of the province. George Thomson will be leading it.

This project will focus on access to two components (legal information and legal services) by two groups who can face isolation in

Amazing what one stumbles over.

A website devoted to the cultural significance of law school T-shirts, all I regret to say from the United States and mostly from the Eighties and Nineties. Information in cyberspace has never been quite as geeky. . . . [more]

Friday’s Daily Texan (which is yet another reason to keep an eye on Austin) featured a piece on Anthony Taussig, retired tax litigator and his visit to the Tarlton Law Library.

Not much unusual there, except that Taussig owns the largest private collection of rare English law texts in the world. His library is surpassed by only a small number of institutions in the United States and England. He teaches a one day course on Collecting Law Books and Manuscripts. . . . [more]

Back in September we joined the chorus of praise for the New York Times’ decision to make a whackload of their archives available free (Some NY Times Articles Now Free). Now the folks at the Times have shown once again that they really are interested in making their data available, this time by releasing a browser designed to view the free archives (which stretch from volume 1, September 18, 1851, through that of December 30, 1922). Called, naturally, the TimesMachine, the browser is in fact an online app that appears within your current browser. A few clicks . . . [more]

I’d like to invite Slaw readers to come check out Quickscribe’s new BC Legislation Portal. Launched yesterday, this site provides daily updates (every 4 hours actually) for changes in BC Law.

To relay a bit about what’s going on under the hood, this site is actually extending the value of Quickscribe’s RSS feeds. I posted on the VLLB a while back about the detailed nature of these feeds, but as I got to use them more, wondered if there might be some value to aggregating them as a collection. The BC Legislation Portal does just that. . . . [more]