Earlier last week, I presented the CCCT IntellAction Working Group selection of principles that should guide the design and organization of court web sites and further explained, in a later post, principles 4, 5 and 6 on notification, content organization & search and security. In this post, I further explain the next three principles:

• Principle #7: Bilinguism
• Principle #8: Accessibility
• Principle #9: Interactivity

Comments and suggestions are welcome! . . . [more]

Because URLs are often clumsy and hard to remember, we use bookmarks. Right? If you’re like me, you’ve got certain critical ones strung across your personal bookmarks toolbar, more stacked in folders there, and perhaps hundreds buried in the entrails of your browser’s file system.

But sometimes you’re away from your own machines. Or you can’t quickly come up with one of your hidden bookmarks. It’s good, then, to be able simply to type in the URL and go to your destination. This, of course, depends on whether a URL is memorable. Some are — I have no trouble remembering . . . [more]

I know this will interest a number of us here at Slaw. From David’s blog post:

I’ve got a new job: I’m co-director of the Harvard Library Lab, a part of Harvard Law School. I’m excited.

The Lab (the name is going to change) was created by John Palfrey a year ago when he became head of the Harvard Law Library (and Vice Dean for Information and Library Resources at the Law School). JP had been executive director of the Berkman Center. The key thing to understand is that the Lab was established by someone with a commitment

Colleague Katharine Thompson has provided me a list of some of the changes she noticed in the new, just received 7th edition of the McGill Guide, known more formally as the Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation, edited by editors of the McGill Law Journal and published by Carswell.

This is the leading legal citation guide in Canada, its counterpart in the US being The Bluebook and the more recent ALWD Citation Manual.

The biggest change to me in the new 7th edition of the McGill Guide is the aversion to periods (albeit, presumably they remain acceptable . . . [more]

Earlier this week, I presented the CCCT IntellAction Working Group selection of principles that should guide the design and organization of court web sites. In this post, I further explain the next three principles:

• Principle #4: Notification
• Principle #5: Content Organization & Search
• Principle #6: Security

Comments and suggestions are welcome! . . . [more]

The Virtual Chase, an online website for U.S. legal research founded by law librarian Genie Tyburski, is now powered by Justia.

Virtual Chase was launched in 1996 by Tyburski, a law librarian at Ballard Spahr LLP in Philadelphia. It was a popular destination for law librarians and legal researchers but was closed down a few years ago.

It is now back with a redesign and new content sections:

• Legal Research: guides to U.S. federal and state law, and links to subject-specific guides
• Community: links to law librarian blogs, Twitter feeds, the Law-Lib listserv, etc.
• Law Libraries:

Back in January, I announced the formation of a working group under the auspices of the Canadian Centre for Court Technology (CCCT). The objective of this working group was to draft guidelines facilitating the modernization of Canadian court web sites. Since that time, we have made progress and expect to have finished a first draft of the Court Web Site guidelines before the upcoming Canadian Forum on Court Technology.

One of the five parts of the guidelines is titled “Principles – Cutting Through Context and Issues: What Principles Should Guide the Design of Court Web Sites?”

In . . . [more]

I saw an intriguing tweet from Westlaw today:

@Westlaw: WestlawNext New delivery format: WordPerfect http://ow.ly/2oiFw

Why am I intrigued?

File formats for downloads from free and fee services may seem innocuous, but every change has an effect. For instance, when Queen’s Printers in some jurisdictions changed their format (from HTML to PDF) for publicly available legislation, CanLII had to come up with new collection practices as PDF formats made point in time comparison with existing HTML files ‘difficult’. That is a grand scale example of a file format issue.

A smaller scale example would be rewriting user materials to . . . [more]

This is a follow-up to Gary Rodrigues’ excellent discussion about Access Copyright on July 26. Access Copyright has some proposed changes to its tariff before the Copyright Board of Canada. In contention: the high jump in fees per student in academic institutions, and Access Copyright’s definition of “copy” which includes uses already permitted under the Copyright Act.

Some good write-ups about the proposed tariff increase (from anti-tariff viewpoints): Michael Geist, Howard Knopf and Techdirt. I was looking for something pro-tariff not written by Access Copyright themselves, but didn’t see anything. Additional links welcome in the comments! . . . [more]

The International Legal Technology Association has its annual conference ILTA 2010 just around the corner. This association and its conference includes some of the leading law firms in North America and looks at not only technology but also records management, information management, knowledge management, social media and related areas. This year’s theme is “Strategic unity”

a concept that resonates the need for law firms and law departments to unite their technology with the practice of law. These disciplines must come together as never before in order to survive and thrive in the future. Conference sessions will be developed around this

The Federal Register, the daily journal of the United States Government including changes to rules and regulations, is celebrating its 75th anniversary, has relaunched its website and re-envisioned their services. Federal Register 2.0 is organized like a daily newspaper and is part of the open government initiatives under the Obama administration.

This video (which also appears on the new website under “About Federal Register 2.0”) provides additional detail about the history of the Federal Register and the changes:

Also note the website is using images from photo sharing site Flickr made available for use under Creative Commons licensing. . . . [more]

We note, with mixed emotions, the passing of Canada Law Book, a company whose roots in Canadian law go back a century.

Here is the announcement that it is being acquired by Thomson.

* 04 Aug 2010

Thomson Reuters Acquires Canada Law Book
Combined content and services provide true online and print customer advantages

Toronto, Canada, Aug. 4, 2010 – Thomson Reuters today announced the acquisition of Canada Law Book, a division of the Cartwright Group Limited. Canada Law Book will be aligned with Carswell, a Thomson Reuters business headquartered in Toronto. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.