Like anyone who owns property along with a bank, I am always interested in interest rates.

Like anyone who would like to retire someday, I am always interested in interest rates.

Whether your primary concern with interest rates is from the borrowing or saving side of the equation, you may be interested in a Bank of Canada News Release about the publication schedule of interest rate announcements from Canada’s central bank.

Over the past several years, the Bank has streamlined its production processes for the Monetary Policy Report and gradually reduced the interval between the release of the rate decision

A few weeks I posted the 1959 vision of the Law Library of the Future, that got my gears turning and I undertook a visioning exercise the result of which I present now, The 2012 Law Library of the Future: To-Day! . . . [more]

We hear a lot of talk about access to justice from the judiciary and the politicians who are charged to execute this lofty ideal. But it took an initiative between the National Virtual Law Library Group and the Federation of Law Societies of Canada to found CanLII over a decade ago.

The Free Access to Law Movement could hardly envisioned the rise of mobile technology in the 2002 Declaration on Free Access to Law. When a solo private practitioner uses their own resources to advances the goals of unrestricted legal access and provides it to the public for free . . . [more]

If you like a good law librarian biography (and really, who doesn’t?), check out page 12 of the Summer edition of the VALL Review. Longtime colleague Susan Daly is profiled in a flattering and well deserved piece by VALL honoured member, Anne Beresford.

Susan is the latest VALL lifetime member to be announced, and I’m very pleased to see the Association make this recognition. Here are two of the great quotes included from her colleagues:

“Susan was an excellent and proficient legal researcher and probably the best for many years, she was never acknowledged as that and perhaps should

AustLII, the Australasian Legal Information Institute, has launched the Australasian Colonial Legal History Library, a free online collection of databases containing legal information from the colonial period of Australia and New Zealand.

A recent article explaining the project, Digitising and searching Australasian colonial legal history, has been published on the Social Science Research Network:

“The paper explains the construction, content and features of the first version of the Library, which as of July 2012 contains 12 databases including one case law database from each of the seven colonies (including New Zealand), some of which are ‘recovered’ cases

I had the opportunity to attend the 105th Annual Meeting and Conference of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL12) this week. AALL12 was my first conference experience with AALL and it was well worth the trip. The programming was informative, the networking opportunities stellar, and the exhibitor contact fruitful.

Programming

Although the AALL is, obviously, an American organization, the content of most sessions and poster presentations addresses matters of broad concern to law libraries without geographic restriction. Several of those on US legal subjects and resources are of substantive edification and are the subjects of some of the stories . . . [more]

The Fastcase 50 for 2012 was announced on Thursday, earlier than last year presumably to coincide with AALL 2012, the American Association of Law Libraries conference currently taking place in Boston.

According to the press release, the Fastcase 50 “recognizes the smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries, and leaders in the law” and were nominated by legal and legal technology industry leaders, law firm managers and other individuals.

From Ed Walters, CEO of Fastcase: “We get to recognize our heroes, the great thinkers, creators, and risk-takers who make this such an interesting time to work in legal tech. . . . [more]

A group of legal and law-related organizations has launched a public information site in Nova Scotia on family law. Family Law Nova Scotia is a cooperative venture funded in part by Justice Canada that brings together:

• Nova Scotia Department of Justice
• Legal Information Society of Nova Scotia
• Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society
• Nova Scotia Legal Aid
• Nova Scotia Department of Community Services
• Canadian Bar Association – Nova Scotia
• Capital District Health Authority-Mental Health Program

The site seems clear and easy for citizens to operate, with plenty of routes into the information — via search, menus, drop-down lists and FAQs. I sense . . . [more]

Last week, on July 14th to be precise, the Law Library of Congress in Washington turned 180 years old.

It is the world’s largest law library, with a collection spanning many centuries as well as all jurisdictions of the planet.

And a glance at its website home page will give you some idea of the breadth of electronic material it makes available: international legal news, foreign legal materials, guides, databases and Congressional materials.

Happy Birthday! . . . [more]

A discussion on the Canadian Association of Law Libraries list this morning strikes me as worth a share here. Dawn Urquhart drew subscribers’ attention to a National Post – Legal Post article published on the web yesterday, “Court decisions may be lost in translation.” The article appears in today’s National Post with the somewhat less fair title, “Quebec decisions isolated by lack of translation,” and the even less fair lede, “Lawyers outside Quebec can’t read useful judgments.”

The author cites Ted Tjaden’s excellent post here on Slaw from last year, wherein Ted noted the limited overlap in . . . [more]

This morning my Toronto colleague Martha Foote was awarded the Thomson Reuters Westlaw Award for Career Achievement, the big award at the Special Libraries Association Legal Division breakfast. The award is designed to recognize a member who has provided significant service to the Division.

Martha is a past chair of the SLA Legal Division and has also served on the executive board of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries. When not serving the profession on a volunteer basis, she currently serves as Board General Manager of LibraryCo, the central management for the Ontario county courthouse library system.

Congratulations, . . . [more]