I was just reminding myself of this project and thought others might be interested. Digging into Linked Parliamentary Data was one of fourteen projects funded by the 2013 Digging into Data Challenge. This is a collaborative project including the University of Amsterdam, the History of Parliament Trust, the Institute of Historical Research, University of London, King’s College London, and the University of Toronto. . . . [more]

ABA Journal is holding its 8th annual Blawg 100 competition that allows readers to vote on the best legal blogs in 13 categories. Readers can register for free to be able to vote:

We [ABA Journal staff] remember the blogs that have tipped us off to breaking news and the bloggers who have compelled us to write about their innovative ideas.

And over the summer, we cue readers—and other bloggers—to write in and let us know about their favorites: When we can see their love for a blog is real and not a marketing hustle, it catches our attention.

Now,

Via Archive-It, the Internet Archive is building a comprehensive collection of information and discussion related to the August 2014 police shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

The project partner responsible, Internet Archive Global Events, comprises the Archive-It team in collaboration with other partners. The Internet Archive invites the public to suggest specific content—news articles, blog posts, other social media, and more—for the collection by submitting the relevant URL, or seed. I’m sure the legal commentaries on federal and state grand juries and indictments, including contrasts with Canadian criminal process, published this week will make useful content.

Help

“Disruption equals opportunity“–Robert Ambrogi

What’s that Chinese proverb? Oh yes, “In every crisis, there is opportunity.” That is Robert Ambrogi‘s position in this great post from last month, “Turning Challenges into Opportunities: New Directions for Legal Information Professionals.” . . . [more]

CAIJ, the Centre d’accès à l’information juridique (the network of courthouse law libraries associated with the Québec Bar Association), has signed resource sharing agreements with 6 major law firms in Québec that will make their legal commentary freely available on the CAIJ website.

The firms in question are:

• Cain Lamarre Casgrain Wells
• De Grandpré Chait
• Langlois Kronström Desjardins
• McMillan
• Osler
• Robic

Their guides, bulletins and commentary articles will be added to a collection that already includes full-text commentary and textbooks including the Développements récents (annual reviews of areas of law), the Collection de droit (Bar School materials), proceedings of the . . . [more]

Cheryl Niemeier, Director of Knowledge & Research Services at Bose McKinney & Evans LLP, started a series of blog posts on legal research apps last week. The post was titled Part 1 – Legal Research in Your Pocket: Fee-based Services and it made me a little bit jealous.

It also made me a little bit nervous and a little bit worried and a little bit puzzled.

Cheryl’s excellent annotated list of research apps includes content that many Canadian law libraries would license, HeinOnline and CCH Intelliconnect. It also contained a lengthy list of sources that would only apply for . . . [more]

Last week at the KMWorld 2014 conference in Washington, DC, Step Two Designs out of Australia once again handed out their annual international Intranet Innovations Awards. This year Ogletree Deakins, an international labour and employment law firm based in the U.S., is winner of the Gold Award for Intranet Rework:

ODConnect, Ogletree Deakins’ intranet, was specifically acclaimed for its client-matter sites and search capability, which judges said provided “a rich set of intranet improvements to support lawyers in their everyday work” and demonstrated “an intranet developed with clear priorities and strong business alignment.” The judges also highlighted “really

This is a follow-up to a September 18, 2014 post on Slaw.ca entitled American Association of Law Libraries Report on Access to Justice that referred to a white paper about what U.S. law libraries are doing to assist self-represented litigants (SRLs).

The blog of the National Self-Represented Litigants Project funded by the University of Windsor Faculty of Law has a recent guest post on the role that Canadian law libraries can play to help SRLs.

It is written by Annette Demers, Acting Law Librarian, University of Windsor, Melanie Hodges Neufeld, Director of Legal Resources, Law Society of Saskatchewan, and . . . [more]

What lawyer doesn’t daydream about throwing in the towel and leaving practice—at least once in a while? Even if just infrequently like during a trust audit. Or maybe frequently but only during select rituals, like contemplating a depleted retainer, or feeling that file go off-the-rails while pondering what it could be like to have your salary taken care of without all that suspense.

Ruminating about less beaten career paths is perfectly lawyerly. The CBA even publishes a list of career alternatives for lawyers, or writes up profiles of people who have pursued different legal paths from time to time. . . . [more]

In September, at the Opening of the Courts, a very similar speech was given by the Chief Justices of Quebec and Ontario to their respective audiences. Unknowingly in tune, the highest ranking provincial judges of both provinces deplored the heavy, inaccessible and saturated court system.

Chief Justices Nicole Duval Hesler, François Rolland and Élizabeth Corte pleaded for the augmentation of judicial staff. But more importantly, they came to the conclusion that despite the current efforts to use staff more efficiently, the court system can simply not satisfy the increasingly high demand. Thus, as per Justice Rolland, “[n]ous n’avons plus le . . . [more]

It’s Open Access Week this week, an opportunity to highlight efforts to promote, facilitate and otherwise support access to cultural, scientific and legal information. If you’re on campus at York University this Friday afternoon Osgoode Hall Law School professor Carys Craig will introduce the screening of “The Internet’s Own Boy” a presentation of the York University Libraries Scholarly Communication Initiative. If you can’t be there Friday I encourage you to watch this wonderful telling of Aaron Swartz’s life story which is also openly available on the Internet Archive.  . . . [more]

Today, the University of Ottawa is organizing Government Information Day to examine the many challenges of organizing, digitizing and preserving often finicky government documents.

We all use them every day: rules and regulations, Hansards, parliamentary committee reports, government agency documents, court records, official stats, public sector scientific and technical reports, etc.

Anyone who has ever had to track down an old order-in-council or find a controversial pollution report by government scientists will appreciate how hard it can be.

For the past little while, the CLA Government Library and Information Management Professionals Network, part of the Canadian Library Association (CLA), has . . . [more]