Last week, Doug Jasinski graced my post with a comment challenging my interest in how different media like blogs and Wikipedia articles find their way into judgments.

His question: “Do 20-year old slacker movies count as different media?”

I don’t presume, Doug, that you really expected (or wanted) my take on this, but I’m prepared to share it anyway. Doug raised an interesting article from Business Insider which talks about a Texas Supreme Court decision citing the Big Lebowski. The reasons for judgment in Kinney v. Barnes, a freedom of speech injunction matter, were released on August 29, . . . [more]

The Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL) is organizing a live “tweet chat” on Thursday, September 25 with Fred Headon, Past-President of the Canadian Bar Association and Chair of the CBA Legal Futures Initiative.

The live chat on Twitter will take place from 12 to 1PM EST and the topic will be “Does the CBA Futures Report provide opportunities for law librarians? ”

The CALL website has details on how interested law librarians (and others) can join the chat.

People can read more about the CBA Legal Futures Initiative on the CBA Futures website.

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Congratulations to the folks at LawyerLocate.ca Inc., Natalie Waddell and Mark C. Robins, for launching their new Canadian law video distribution site LegalTube.ca.

The website is aimed at the public, giving easy video access on a wide range of law-related topics. The site is made up of video content from lawyers listed on LawyerLocate.ca, with videos originally housed on YouTube or Vimeo, pulling everything together by topic as well as by participant profiles (lawyers and law firms). I found the site very easy to navigate with major law topics across the top. There is also a category . . . [more]

Yesterday, September 1, 2014, the new Alberta Court of Appeal Rules came into effect. The new rules were announced on May 23, and the new rules themselves were enacted on March 12, 2014. An announcement explains:

When the Alberta Rules of Court were replaced in November,
2010, they did not contain rules for appeals to the Court of Appeal of Alberta. While we waited for these new appellate rules, the “old (1968) rules” continued to apply to appeals to the Court of Appeal. With the enactment of the new Court of Appeal rules , all of the 2010 Rules of

In the June issue of Technical Services Law Librarian Karen Wahl talks about Kristen M. Hallows‘ article called “It’s All Enumerative: Reconsidering Library of Congress Classification in U.S. Law Libraries” published in the Winter issue of the Law Library Journal.

In her review Wahl says:

The major thesis is that a subject classification scheme, rather than a jurisdictional classification scheme, may better support the needs of users because it will collocate related materials better, leading to better browsability for the patrons. It implies that the hyper-specificity of LCC makes this more difficult for a smaller law

If you could change the way a court formatted or published its judgments, what changes would you recommend? XML? Typography? Are there any courts whose judgments you think are better (looking) than the rest? Or are there any ongoing initiatives or helpful products/sources in this area you’d like to point out? I would be grateful for your comments, tips, etc. Thanks! . . . [more]

Read the full article here. . . . [more]

SLA has had a regular series of Twitter chats on a variety of topics. The next one, on info pros and entrepreneurialism, is close to my heart, and being co-hosted by another association I belong to, AIIP (Association of Independent Information Professionals). Details below. I hope you will take part or read along.

#SLAtalk: Trailblazing! Info Pros and the Entrepreneurial Spirit
https://www.sla.org/slatalk-trailblazing-info-pros-entrepreneurial-spirit/

Passion. Positivity. Adaptability. Leadership. Ambition.

According to Entrepreneur Magazine, it is these five traits that exemplify the entrepreneurial spirit. Join @SLAhq and the Association of Independent Information Professionals (@AIIP) for an hour-long Twitter chat about

Earlier this week I participated in a bilingual (French–English) conference. Of course, not all participants and presenters were bilingual, so simultaneous interpretation services were offered.

I’m always impressed with simultaneous interpretation. I think it’s a real feat to be able to listen in one language and process the information quickly enough to speak words of the same meaning in another language, while continuing to listen, continuing to process, and continuing to speak. I’m imagining reading a case while dictating a memo while running on a treadmill.

So simultaneous interpretation is wonderful and impressive. What also struck me, though, is that . . . [more]

The Ontario government is harmonizing the look and feel of all its websites. One of the sites being renovated is the e-Laws site, home of Ontario’s official statutes and regulations.

The Ministry of the AG has just tweeted a general invitation to try out the new site in beta, and to comment.

Here is the English language law site

Here is the French language law site

There is a ‘contact us’ button in the text at the top of the page. Please use it to comment on the beta version (though you may feel free as well to say what . . . [more]

First, let me say that I am not looking for a job. I have a fantastic, challenging and new job for my employer that is keeping me alert and happy, thank you very much. Now that is out of the way, let me share a job advertisement that landed in my inbox.

Posting Details
Job Work Location:US
Position Title:
Data Curator
Compensation Grade:Band 52T
Posting Date:07-28-2014
Posting Number:20096847
SupOrg – Division Equivalent:US1016 – CUSP
FT/PT: FT
Unit Specific Text:

Position Summary:
The Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) at New York University seeks a

The families of two individuals who were killed in a June, 2012 shooting inside the Eaton Centre Mall in Toronto have sued the owner of the mall and the Toronto and Hamilton Police Departments, among others.

The claims total nearly $4 million dollars combined. The thrust of the claims is that the various defendants were responsible in different ways for failing to prevent the shooting. A news story about the claims, and the shooting, can be found here.

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