I had missed last week’s BBC Magazine which starts a Blog column based upon hand-drawn diagrams like this:

It’s described (somewhat pedestrianly) as

a neat analysis of modern life, all incorporated into that underused medium of index cards, the type of which one would have found in the pre-computer school library.

The original site is well worth finding.

Here is another image:

Whimsy for a Friday, even if it’s not the Fillip . . . [more]

Stanford University has started an interdisciplinary research program, Clean Slate Design for the Internet, that asks the beguilingly simple questions: “With what we know today, if we were to start again with a clean slate, how would we design a global communications infrastructure?”, and “How should the Internet look in 15 years?”

The whitpaper for the project [PDF] makes this statement in its introductory overview:

We believe that the current Internet has significant deficiencies that need to be solved before it can become a unified global communication infrastructure. Further, we believe the Internet’s shortcomings will not be resolved by

Yesterday, with no fanfare whatever (mea culpa), Slaw had the good fortune to acquire a new member. John Swan joined us as an occasional contributor. John is counsel at Aird & Berlis LLP in Toronto, supporting lawyers in that firm with respect to legal research and opinions. A teacher and an author, John will add much lustre to Slaw and certainly knows how to provoke us into a discussion: his mild, short first comment on CanLII has rapidly turned into the hottest thread here in quite a while.

Welcome John. . . . [more]

This is a week that I normally commune with geeks, bloggers and amateurs de toute technologique at the ABA’s TechShow in Chicago.

This year, it’s being chaired by Toronto’s own Dan Pinnington, who has become the fourth CanadianFollowing Chester, Tamminga and Bilinsky to chair the premium legal technology show.

I started going in 1986, which was before the Flood in technology terms, visiting the extraordinary Infomart in Dallas, which looked like a capsule from the future.

But this year, I’m following the adventure through the blogosphereDennis is sitting it out too.

If you’re a thirsty blogger (pleonastic I . . . [more]

This is a story that almost has it all: fast food, research tools, and the whiff of legal challenge. Meat and drink, so to speak, to the world of Slaw.

Word has it that McDonald’s has taken a scunner to the OED‘s inclusion of McJob, at least defined as it now isThe story is everywhere: a Canada.com link will suffice.:

McJob, n.
colloq. and depreciative (orig. U.S.).

    An unstimulating, low-paid job with few prospects, esp. one created by the expansion of the service sector.

Apparently Mickey D’s has been around this block once before, when in . . . [more]

We’ve been having a discussion about CanLII’s new search forms, and lo and behold, BAILII announces a novel set of their own for caselaw, legislation, other materials, and a browse list. (Hat tip: beSpacific). Can’t say I remember how it used to be, so I can’t comment on the changes. I do think, though, that they might have made the interfaces a whole lot more pleasing to the eye, and therefore the mind.

May I suggest that comments on this be made in the discussion about CanLII’s new interface? I’d hate to have split up . . . [more]

Every year, Library Journal profiles 50 innovative North American librarians and other information professionals. This year, many of the “Movers & Shakers” selected are profiled for their creative uses of Web 2.0 technologies to develop and deliver amazing research services and products; they’re branded the “2.0 Gurus”. Here are some of them:

Amanda Etches-Johnson, Reference and User Experience Librarian, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario
-Started a library blog in 2003 and instant messaging reference in 2005

Casey Bisson, Information Architect, Lamson Library, Plymouth State University
-Using a plugin within a WordPress framework, he created a library catalogue called Scriblio (formerly WPopac) . . . [more]

The Chronicle of Higher Education News Blog commented earlier this week on a piece by the New York Times legal correspondent Adam Liptak who argues that the influence of law reviews is on a sharp decline [one has to register online to read the original Times piece]:

“Meanwhile, the law-review articles have become less readable and less relevant, as the best legal writers and legal minds have reserved their analyses for blogs or for supporting briefs they file in cases that interest them. Summarizing a recent discussion at Yeshiva University’s Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law about the dwindling influence

Is anyone as dismayed as I by the very recent changes to the CanLII site? Has it, in fact, made finding cases any easier? I miss the ability to go straight to the alphabetical list of cases. The changes made in the way one finds legislation seem to be far less drastic. . . . [more]

I received an unsolicited email newsletter from a group called Linex Legal. I have never heard of them, but from the website they claim to offer a mulitjurisdictional service that gives updates taken from government and law firm client publications and websites.

Does anybody know more about this service? It may be useful to get access to some of the law firm publications, but I’m always skeptical when I get something unsolicited. . . . [more]

Reading both the Guardian’s blog Comment is Free on WebCameron and today’s accounts of the use of collaborative technologies by Senators Obama and Clinton, makes one wonder why Canadian politicians use of the new technologies has been so lame.

You wouldn’t think from the offerings of Dumont, Boisclair and Charest, that candidates elsewhere had more passionately embraced the technology, or that Monday’s vote might be moved by spontaneity.

On this continent, you can browse the video offerings of the declared candidates at Youtube. But don’t expect Canadian equivalents – Stephen Harper is way behind Nicolas Sarkozy and . . . [more]

beSpacific points us to a U.S. Library of Congress site about the problem of digital preservation. Well worth a visit by anyone who creates or stores digital records, not only librarians.

One of the things that interested me was the statistic that the “average” website lasts somewhere between 44 and 100 days — yet another reason to crow that Slaw is not your average website. The LOC says, in that regard, “Fortunately, the Library is now collecting political Web sites as part of its digital preservation program.” Note the bias that “politics” is the most important matter. Why not . . . [more]