Many readers will already know that Toronto is hosting the annual conference and general meeting of CALL/ACBD in May. This gathering is a high point in the association’s calendar, and this year is even more special, as we are marking the start of our 50^th anniversary.

The program is relevant to a wide audience – no matter your level of experience or expertise, you should find something to pique your interest. The exhibit hall will offer opportunities to learn about new developments in legal information, and the social program will give you a chance to meet new colleagues, catch . . . [more]

An item noted by Susannah Tredewell on the VALL website, CANSIM data has been made available free of charge by StatsCan under the Statistics Canada Open Licence Agreement.

CANSIM is Statistics Canada’s key socioeconomic database, receives periodic updates daily to its various tables, and “provides fast and easy access to a large range of the latest statistics available in Canada.”

They’ve also added a screencast video tutorial, which would have been a nice addition to the 4 videos StatsCan currently has on its Youtube channel. It seems rather odd, I must say, when an organization’s youtube channel . . . [more]

A little while ago I blogged about legal bibliographies and highlighted some of the work that John Eaton at the University of Manitoba has done in this area. It is very nice to see that John’s work has been recognised as he is the 2012 recipient of the Association of College and Research Libraries Marta Lange/CQ Press Award. This award recognises librarians who have made a significant contribution to bibliography and information service in law or political science. The press release from the American Library Association announcing the award can be found here.

Congratulations John! . . . [more]

CanLII President Colin Lachance has just now released his plan for that organization’s next three years. “Strategic Priorities 2012 to 2014” is available in a variety of formats: HTML, PDF, and large print PDF. Versions in French are also available, of course.

The report elaborates on four strategic priorities for CanLII:

1. Secure permanent role as foremost source of free law in canada.
2. Continually enrich content to meet the needs of public and professional users.
3. Deliver easy to use professional grade tools and a compelling site experience.
4. Continuously promote and defend free access to law

As readers will . . . [more]

A couple of weeks ago the academic library blog and twittersphere was ablaze reacting to a tweet that “[a]ll of Harvard library staff have just effectively been fired”. As more news came out of a January 19 Harvard town hall meeting it appears that the reorganization at Harvard will not be that extreme – but these will be very challenging times for the Harvard library. The Chronicle of Higher Education has a nice short piece on this situation here. The text of the presentation that sparked the reaction is here. More news is expected next month. . . . [more]

It just so happened that as Slaw columnist Ed Prutschi’s “Crime & Punishment in 2012” appeared today, I received the latest emailed copy of Criminological Highlights from the University of Toronto’s Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies. I thought I’d pass on the link to those of our readers who are interested in criminal law or the intersection of law and social behaviour.

Criminological Highlights is a digest of selected academic articles,

designed to provide an accessible look at some of the more interesting criminological research that is currently being published. Each issue contains “Headlines and Conclusions” for

A number of months ago (but unremarked here on Slaw) The Canadian Judicial Council released a “Reference Guide for Judges Appointed to Commissions of Inquiry,” [PDF] those investigative, often palliative, and sometimes corrective events with which all Canadians are familiar. This acts as a resource guide to accompany the Protocol [PDF] governing appointments of judges that the Council released back in August of 2010.

Part I serves as an Introduction to orientate the reader and briefly describe the purpose of the Protocol.

Part II offers a checklist of the types of things any commissioner will likely wish to

Fair use (s. 107) is an intentionally drafted ambiguous provision in the U.S. Copyright Act for the purpose of defending users of copyright works from a variety of otherwise infringing acts. Although often compared to the Canadian fair dealing, the two defenses are quite different. Two interesting documents on the analysis of fair use and its interpretation were recently released.

General Counsel from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office released a memorandum on 19 January 2012 on: USPTO Position on Fair Use of Copies of NPL Made in Patent Examination. The memorandum looks at three issues: . . . [more]

I was writing a comment in response to Melanie Bueckert who pointed out that Manitoba is reviewing their law society library services, much like Nova Scotia when I realized the comment was longer than my usual Slaw post. I hope that Slaw readers will indulge me with their attention to issues facing law society libraries, especially in less populated jurisdictions.

Let me preface this post/comment by sharing that I have never worked in a law society library. As a law firm librarian, I rely on law society libraries, locally and in other jurisdictions, their services and collections, to supplement . . . [more]

I have updated my Legal Research and Writing website with a new page on resources for teaching legal research and writing.

Included on the page are links to:

• online training video tutorials,

• legal research and writing journals, newsletters and selected articles,

• legal research and writing associations and blogs, and

• general teaching resources for teaching legal research and writing.

I suspect my page may not be complete, so if I have missed something, I welcome comments and suggestions for other resources. . . . [more]

I was shocked to read this headline in yesterday’s issue of INFORUM The Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society semi-monthly e-newsletter: “Society to reduce Library & Information Services department”. The NSBS Library review project has been ongoing since April 2010.

There has been mention of the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society Library and Information Services on Slaw, most notably, when this worthy group of librarians and library technicians received the Hugh Lawford Award for Excellence in Legal Publishing.

The NSBS offers documents surrounging the review on their website:

• Library & Information Services Monitoring Report (April 19, 2011)
• Memo to Council, Organisational

The start of the winter term means a happy return to the University of Toronto Faculty of Information where I am again part of the team that teaches the perennially oversubscribed Legal Literature and Librarianship class. This year I am co-teaching with two of my colleagues Susan Barker and John Bolan and we will once again feature a guest lecture from Ted Tjaden who taught this course from 1998-2004. (Ted has blogged about his impressions of the class here , here and here).

It might strike some of my non-librarian colleagues odd or quaint that such a course continues . . . [more]