While I’m on search engines (see my prior post about Google’s universal search), I recommend that you take a look at hakia, a new search engine still in beta. It seems to be a project that began in Turkey and that now has its base in the U.S. It’s aiming for the higher end research market, it would appear:

hakia’s capabilities will appeal to all Web searchers – especially those engaged in research on knowledge intensive subjects, such as medicine, law, finance, science, and literature.

(This is the first time I’ve ever seen law mentioned as a target discipline . . . [more]

“We want to help you find the very best answer, even if you don’t know where to look.”

Sounds like something a librarian might say. But it’s Marissa Mayer, a Google V.P., talking about that fact that Google’s many search options — news, video, images, blogs, etc. — might be confusing for people. Last week Google announced it was initiating “universal search,” the aim being to “blend content from Images, Maps, Books, Video, and News into our web results.”

Some searches throw up images or videos, others yield news reports, in addition to the usual mound of web page results. . . . [more]

The Canadian Judicial Council has released Justice Matters, its 2005-2006 Annual Report.

“In 2005-06, the Council approved several important initiatives created by its committees to support judges in improving access to justice. These tools include principles for dealing with self-represented litigants, model policy on access to court records, research into alternate models of court administration, and jury instructions designed to minimize the risk associated with dismissed cases”.

“The Council also continues to carry out its important mandate of reviewing complaints against federally appointed judges. Canadians expect and deserve the highest standards of conduct from their judges, and the Council

A recent posting on the CALL-L discussion list points out that some of the presentations from the recent Canadian Association of Law Libraries Conference 2007, held earlier this month, have been posted to the CALL web site here. Similarly, readers may be interested in taking a look at presentations and materials for some of the Legal Division sessions for the forthcoming Special Libraries Association Annual Meeting 2007, available here. As that meeting (usually engaging and interesting, in my experience) is still a couple of weeks away, additional materials may yet be posted. . . . [more]

Via Quillblog: As part of the selling off that’s being going on at Thomson, the educational publisher, Thomson Nelson, has been sold to Apax Partners and OMERS Capital Partners, the former an American company, the latter a Canadian pension plan provider. The story is on PR Newswire.

Thomson Nelson has a substantial list of books aimed at paralegals. . . . [more]

On the very weak basis that if it’s to do with government then it’s related to law, I’m bringing the Canadian Ice Service to your attention, an agency I’d not heard of until I read about it in a recent BBC story about Ayles Ice Island, a collosal piece of our frozen north the size of Manhattan that’s been floating further and further away from its Ellesmere Island home since it calved two years ago. (Okay, an issue for legal research: what if the thing floated so far towards Greenland that it trespassed into what had been Danish waters? Could . . . [more]

Having happily agreed to post a Friday Fillip for Simon Fodden, I unexpectedly and blithely extended my May vacation thereby dropping the proverbial ball! Sorry, Simon! Hence, this Tuesday Friday Fillip … Fun with Wills!

If you haven’t already come across the unusual will of Charles Vance Millar, a lawyer, who must have been a pretty funny guy, read this. His 1926 will opens with the clause:

“This Will is necessarily uncommon and capricious because I have no dependents or near relations and no duty rests upon me to leave any property at my death and what I

There is an interesting article in the upcoming June issue of The Walrus by Ali Symons “A real-life Google query goes awry” giving some interesting personal observations on a visit to Googleplex, Google headquarters in the Silicon Valley. One thing I really appreciate about The Walrus online is that they have a “further reading” section that gives more information than what is contained in the published issue. The one for the Symons’ article gives some links that have a well, different, perspective in which to see Google. . . . [more]

CALL’s Wendy Reynolds has started a new blog for the knowledge management special interest group (I think that’s what SIG means), KM Librarians “A co-operative blog for members of the CALL KM SIG.”

Wendy says: “Interested in becoming a regular contributor? Get in touch with the SIG chairs Linda Matte and Wendy Reynolds, and we’ll hook you up.” . . . [more]

Slowly (not wiki wikiApparently meaning “quick” in Hawaiian.) wikis are making their way into legal lives, the clearest example perhaps being the new U.S. 7^th Circuit Wiki that Agnese Caruso blogged about last week. If you’re thinking of getting your feet wet in the wiki-surf, you might consider Zoho’s new Wiki application.

Zoho has been adding new apps to its offerings at quite a rate, aiming to stay in the race with Google, Yahoo and all of the others competing for the online office suite market. I’ve found some of Zoho’s offerings to be simply adequate (their . . . [more]

I received this invitation from Gene Koo at Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society. Gene will be presenting the report “New Skills, New Learning” which Simon Chester summarized for us on April 9th. If you want to take part in the meeting, please RSVP as per the invitation below.

Dear Colleagues:

As you know, recently I conducted research into legal technology and education, examining how changing practice needs are affecting what, and how, law schools should teach. (Research was conducted in partnership with the LexisNexis Group). Many of you provided considerable help and insight during this

Okay, an exabyte (1152921504606846976 bytes) is 2 to the 60th power , or 1,024 petabytes. A petabyte is 1,024 terabytes; a terabyte is 1,024 gigabytes; and a gigabyte is 1,024 megabytes…