The Department of Justice Canada appears to have recently started to offer PDF, bilingual versions of key federal statutes on their site here.

An example is the Divorce Act current to about 2 weeks ago, available in HTML (English only or French only) and PDF (containing side by side English and French).

The PDF versions are current to the same date as the HTML version.

However, one criticism – if I may – is that the PDF version does not have the currency date on its face. As such, once printed, the reader does not necessarily know how current . . . [more]

As a follow up to my prior post on full-text keyword searching versus controlled vocabularies, I am wondering what law firms are doing regarding harvesting and re-using their internal research work product (research memos, client bulletins and newsletters, reasoned opinions and the like).

I know of some firms that actually catalog them in a separate database using a simplified legal taxonomy. I assume the other extreme is doing nothing but making them available on a document management system (DMS) to be searched full-text by keyword.

For those that do some level of profiling or cataloging:

1) What taxonomy works best . . . [more]

Thomas Mann, author of The Oxford Guide to Library Research, has recently written a good article called “The Peloponnesian War and the Future of Reference, Cataloging, and Scholarship in Research Libraries” (PDF).

Colleague Clare Mauro brought this article to my attention after a discussion we had regarding my naive conclusion after reading Everything is Miscellaneous that the “magical search engine” just around the corner will solve all of our information needs and reduce or eliminate the need for “second order” control over information through controlled vocabularies.

Mann’s article reminds us of the power of “second order” precoordinated . . . [more]

What goes around comes around. It seems that two years ago almost to the date, I mentioned here on SLAW the discussions of an informal group of Toronto research lawyers surrounding the role of research lawyers in law firms.

At our meeting last week, the same discussion arose again, albeit in a slightly different context. Our discussion this time around focused on the frustration some research lawyers still feel in their role not being fully understood by others in their law firm or by clients. This frustration manifests itself in a number of ways:

1) There is a mistaken belief . . . [more]

Maybe so, but another fish sometimes learns. 

Sometimes one doesn’t end up where one intended, but once one is there, it’s worth visiting.

Visit http://www.righthandpointing.com

(credit/property: http://www.righthandpointing.com/theologyreels.jpg)

or its sub-site

http://www.righthandpointing.com/latin/ for a useful collection of Latin proverbs with commentary.

Non sine causa sed sine fine laudatus? 

Maybe. But if so, who cares?

—————-

Notes:

1. The device in the picture (borrowed from the righthandpoint.com site) – a reel-to-reel tape recorder – is, for those too young to remember, an archaic precursor of the MP3 player and the IPod.

2. The English translations of the quotations is:

The fish . . . [more]

Keen readers of the Daily Mirror ((No not that Daily Mirror – the one from Colombo ))will have smiled at the following story:

Nail-biting lunch

By S. S. Selvanayagam

A senior lawyer claimed that he underwent a traumatic experience at the Colombo Law Library canteen while he was having his lunch.

He ordered a plate of rice with vegetables and sat down at a table close to the main counter of the canteen. A little later one of the waiters brought him a plate of rice with vegetables.

As he was partaking of the food, to his astonishment and

Oxford University Press has a line of small books — each somewhere around 150 pages in length — known collectively as “Very Short Introductions” and, well, introducing you to 173 subjects, such as Engels, Atheism, Feminism, American Political Parties and Elections. (The list is so eclectic that it can’t really generate a representative sample.)

These are serious books — hardly Wittgenstein for Dolts — typically written by noted academics or other experts. They are also books that have little to do with Slaw’s usual beat, I admit. At a stretch I could point out . . . [more]

Curehunter, the “visual medical dictionary,” is worth your taking a look at for at least a couple of reasons: it’s likely that some people in your firm have a practice that touches upon medical affairs one way or another; and as information presentation fans — we are, aren’t we? — we should, once again, pay homage to the interesting technological efforts of a sister profession.

The visual dictionary (don’t think pictures of diseases; unlike this visual dictionary, Curehunter is more a graphic display of words dictionary) presents you with three columns and a search box. Enter . . . [more]

Statistics Canada reported today that that rate of incarceration in Canada increased for the first time in more than a decade in 2005/2006.

The rate moved from 107 to 110 prisoners per 100,000 population.

“Canada’s incarceration rate tends to be higher than most western European countries, yet far lower than that of the United States. For instance, Sweden posted an incarceration rate of 82 and France a rate of 85 per 100,000 population in 2005/2006. By comparison, the incarceration rate in England and Wales was 148, and in the United States the adult rate stood at 738 (the United States

Universities dispose of more than 1.8 million books and journals a year, according to official figures… Statistics obtained by The Times Higher [Education Supplement] show that 36 institutions got rid of more books and printed volumes than they acquired.

Seems it has to do with the need to create space for e-learning environments, or so the claim goes. In aggregate, however, libraries acquired more print materials than they “decomissioned,” some 2.8 million volumes in 2005-2006. . . . [more]

This is not hard research or hard law, but it touches on each and it is interesting. It is Democracy 250. In short, a site intended to commemorate 250 years of Parliamentary Democracy in Nova Scotia.

One of the more interesting parts of the site is the Historical Timeline and Learning Resources which include digital copies of original acts, treaties etc drawn from archival collections. Such as the 1758 Act, Relating to the Duties of Import on Rum and other Distilled Liquors. In the timeline one can pick a year and see the documents associated with it.

….in . . . [more]

“The Care and Feeding of a Law Librarian” briefly discusses what firms can do to keep law librarians happy. Some highlights:

• Provide opportunities for law librarians to continually work with and assist colleagues.
• Recognize and acknowledge their unique and valuable skills.
• Give constructive criticism and feedback.
• Offer opportunities for them to contribute to the overall work of the firm/parent organization.
• Encourage professional development and mentoring.