Hallelujah, @Orders-in-Council is tweeting again.
This twitter stream that monitors updates from the Privy Council Office has been intermittent to say the least. It is really important to know what is coming out of the Privy Council Office.
Given the on again off again nature of this particular twitter stream, should we follow it or not?
My instinct says watch for it, but continue with regular monitoring of the OIC database. What do you think? . . . [more]
Google keeps revising its menu structure, and one of the recently demoted links was Scholar: you now have to do three clicks to call it up from the Google search page—More, Even More, & finally Scholar. Johan Ugander, a grad student at Cornell, has come up with a bookmarklet, Scholarfy, that will take you with one click from the main Search page right to results in Scholar. (You have to go to Google Search to begin with. You can then either enter your search term and hit the bookmarklet, or do it in the reverse order.)
Readers . . . [more]
The Conference Planning Committee for CALL 2012 is fully immersed in the final details – making sure that the little things are under control, so that the big event looks effortless and professional. It’s nice to take a step back every now and again, and look at the big picture. And what a picture it is!
We have dazzling venues, from the Royal York (our conference hotel), to the Ontario Legislature at Queen’s Park (the home of the opening reception), to the Liberty Grand (where we’ll be kicking off our 50th anniversary year). You’ll be learning more about the . . . [more]
Parliamentary websites are too often overlooked as sources for legal research. And that’s a shame because the best ones tend to offer access to an amazingly broad range of material.
The new website of the Australian Parliament, launched last week, is a case in point. There is a ton of stuff there. Most interesting, from my researcher point of view, are the research publications written by the Parliamentary Library, the bill digests (summaries) and the committee pages.
The Library of Congress blog, In Custodia Legis, has a description and evaluation of many of the site’s new features. . . . [more]
“Trends in Law Practice Management – Calculating the Risks” will be
presented on Feb. 28, 2012, by the CBA’s Legal Profession Assistance Conference, the Canadian Lawyers Insurance Association and the National Law Practice Management and Technology Section live via webconference.
The advantages of cloud computing, virtual or online law practices and unbundling of legal services are getting a lot of press – convenience to clients, reduced overhead expenses, remote access, and enhanced access to justice are among the benefits touted. But there are also very real and practical risks, and ethical
We are deep in Pilot rollout of Windows 7 and Office 2010 at Field Law. It is fun, interesting, frustrating, and intense.
Fun – I love learning new things, especially technology things. I especially like being in Pilot groups where I can see that my feedback is shaping the way we offer these tools to the rest of the firm.
Interesting – It is interesting to see how ribbons and menus were contemplated by the developers who are likely not the same folks who created Windows originally. New technologies are often, for me, a glimpse of how the current generation . . . [more]
The 2012 Conference in Toronto will mark the 50th annual meeting of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries and provide an occasion to highlight many of the accomplishments of the association and its members over the decades since its creation. One of many accomplishment worthy of note is the Index to Canadian Legal Literature for which CALL provided both the inspiration and the support required to create a Canadian publication that met international indexing standards.
The Proposal for a New Index
In December 1983, The Canadian Law Information Council and The Canadian Association of Law Libraries developed a proposal to . . . [more]
Well, as Simon Chester alerted us it would, CanLII has just now clicked the odometer over as the millionth judgment comes on line. Here’s the graphic evidence (courtesy of Colin Lachance):
Fittingly, perhaps, the millionth judgment was an opinion from the Supreme Court, S.L. v. Commission scolaire des Chênes 2012 SCC 7.
That’s a whole lot of precedent. Use it wisely, Canada. . . . [more]
Getting the word out about copyright compliance is never easy; once a year you can be part of an international trend and plan a copyright education and awareness day with posters, discussions and more. The Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) has helpful archives from its 2011 Copyright Day.
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) lists three “special days”:
The Association of American Publishers announced yesterday that they have successfully taken two websites offline that were freely distributing copyrighted e-books. One of these sites, library.nu, was said to contain more than 400,000 protected digital works.
PaidContent.org has a post up describing how publishers are banding together to fight against book piracy, similar to the battles the RIA has fought over the past decade. The piece also correctly notes how this takedown was conducted without any new legislative powers, such as those in the failed US SOPA bill.
But perhaps the best read of the bunch (at least for . . . [more]
Daniel Poulin just told me that Canlii will, this week, pass a momentous event – the millionth case will be added to Canlii.
We tend to take Canlii for granted – but it really has been a remarkably successful project, which should be supported by all Canadian lawyers, and cheered by Slaw readers. Public access is vital.
Now – a small challenge for those readers. What will the millionth case be?
A Newfoundland and Labrador trial decision? Or something from the Québec Commission de reconnaissance des associations d’artistes et des associations de producteurs? Which has the wonderful acronym, qccraaap. . . . [more]
The favourite musical in my household has to be The Music Man. It might be because of the catchy lyrics, it may be because of the mental image of Robert Preston (from the 1967 film adaptation) prancing around in a band uniform, it could be because my husband played the trombone and my children self-identify as band geeks. It is possibly sustained by my colleague Dino occasionally addressing me as “Marian, Madame Librarian” with his Robert Preston impression. It could even be my fond memory that the University of Alberta Library Catalogue was named “Marian” in the early 90s. . . . [more]
This project has been made possible in part by the Government of Canada | Ce projet a été rendu possible en partie grâce au gouvernement du Canada