I have prided myself from time to time on introducing Slaw readers to fairly arcane resources, but this may take the cake of abstruseness. The Visigoths, famous for sacking Rome, spread throughout Western Europe in the second half of the first millennium, reaching as far as what is now Spain and Portugal in what is known as the Kingdom of Toulouse. I confess I’d always thought of Goths as folks who wouldn’t bother much with law. Turns out I was wrong.

You can examine the Visigothic Code (in an English translation) on the Library of Iberian Resources Online, . . . [more]

As some of you know, I have another life in which I occasionally crank out more words (spill ink and post pixels, if you will) than people who are formally academic lawyers. One aspect involves writing about what “cause” means in Canadian tort law. (OK, so I’ve weird hobbies, but then it beats allowing people to shoot hard rubber objects at your body, on the understanding that, more often than not, you’ll try to make the object hit you rather than getting out of the way.) 

Anyway, the point is that I knew, anecdotally and from coincidental serendipity when looking . . . [more]

Back when it was sunny and warm, I posted about Google Labs’ experiment with displaying search results along a timeline. Now that experiment has moved one step further into the mainstream. A week or so ago Google announced that it was making three new search views available, still on an experimental basis, but now letting you join the trial (and presumably requiring you to have a Google account that you’re logged into).

If you opt to join the “alternate views for search results” experiment from the sign-up page your Google searches will thereafter display three new buttons at the top . . . [more]

Thinking that the resource might be of some interest to our readers, I followed a link from an email list that promised the Association of College and Research Libraries’ Women’s Studies Section–Women’s History Sites [http://libraries.mit.edu/humanities/WomensStudies/history.html], with a section on Canada.

• That actually leads to an error message on MIT’s website, one annoying feature of which is that it wipes out the erring URL and replaces it with the totally unhelpful 404 URL. This means that as you attempt to reform the original URL, moving higher up the nested directories looking for a substantive hit, you have to paste the wrong

The Law Commissions of the UK and Scotland yesterday published their 18th in a series of proposed statute law repeals. A draft Bill containing the proposed repeals will be introduced soon into the House of Lords.

“In reforming the law, the Law Commission does not just propose new laws. It also proposes the repeal of laws that have become obsolete. The purpose of our statute law repeals work is to modernise and simplify the statute book, reduce its size and save the time of lawyers and others who use it. This in turn helps to avoid unnecessary costs. It

Last week Agnese Caruso reported that the Library of Congress is running a pilot project with Flickr to make its photographic collections available over the web. According to the Library of Congress Blog, the response has been tremendous:

The response to the Library’s pilot project with Flickr has been nothing short of astounding. You always hope for a positive reaction to something like this, but it has been utterly off the charts—from the Flickr community, from the blogosphere, from the news media—it is nothing short of amazing.

Let’s start out with a few statistics, as of last night (thanks,

An announcement that’s appropriate, given that this weeks Column is on e-discovery:

The Sedona Canada E-discovery Principles [PDF] in English are now up on the Canadian E-discovery Portal, which is hosted by Lexum. The French version will be posted soon.

You will also be able to find Canadian e-discovery related precedents (common law, civil law) on the Portal.

Congratulations to everyone involved, particularly the “content managers” Peg Duncan, Dan Pinnington, Frédéric Pelletier and (Slawyer) Dominic Jaar. . . . [more]

A letter has gone out to Canada’s law deans from the Director General of Legal Affairs Bureau of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) stating that the Bureau wishes to “enhance Canada’s current engagement with the work of the [International Law] Commission, including its studies and recommendations.” The Bureau would like

to hear of Canadian legal academics who are following the Commission’s work, whether in total or with respect to a specific topic. …We would welcome receiving an email providing us with the name, contact details, and areas of specific interest with respect to the Commission’s work

I don’t think Slaw has mentioned the International Judicial Monitor, an “international law resource for judiciaries, justice sector professionals, and the rule of law community around the world.” Published, or refreshed, every two months or so, this issue of the Monitor has a feature piece on the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and notes on a dozen judicial developments in as many countries. There’s also a useful page of “international resources.”

The Monitor is published by the American Society of International Law in Washington, D.C. . . . [more]

I often consult WestlaweCarswell for electronic access to the Index to Canadian Legal Literature. I use the search template designed for that purpose. Usually I rely on general keyword searches. But today, since my research related to a specific piece of legislation, I thought I would use the “Legislation” field. Unfortunately, my various search term combinations did not easily yield the results I sought.

Here is a hypothetical example to illustrate my point:

If I entered Criminal Code 123 into the “Legislation” field, I got one hit, which actually related to s. 123 of another act and a different section

Three or four times in the last week I have had discussions with various people on the issue of the versions of copies of court cases that are provided to the court in a book of authorities – are you required to provide a photocopy of the case from an official (or unofficial) print version of the case or is it acceptable to provide a printout of an online version from one of the commercial databases or from CanLII?

A decade or more ago – when online versions of judgments did not always format well or may not have . . . [more]

The American Asssociation of Law Libraries sent an email to members today asking the following question: What “extinct” book, research tool, database, etc., do you miss from an earlier time (include the year) and why?

They will publish the results in their Spectrum magazine and I will report back here on their results. Since I assume most of their responses will be based on American law-related resources, I thought I would throw the question out here specifically for any Canadian responses. What “extinct” book, research tool, database, etc., do you miss from an earlier time (include the year) and why? . . . [more]