Newspapers of the CanWest Global chain distributed a Janice Tibbetts article today that claims that the federal government may be considering the elimination of the Court Challenges Program as part of an overall review of government programs.

The Program provides funding to help minority, women’s and other disadvantaged groups so they can launch “test court cases” challenging laws that may violate equality rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The CanWest News Service article entitled Funding for minority groups to challenge federal laws under review reports that the program, first set up under former Prime Minister Pierre . . . [more]

ZDNet’s Between the Lines pointed me yesterda to Confused Of Calcutta, the blog of JP Rangaswami, the chief of “alternative market models” at the investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein in London. This is not my usual fare, but he is seriously intrigued by technology. He thinks about enterprise software, social software from a market believer’s perspective, but focuses on its impact on the individual. With your indulgence, I’m going to quote holus bolus his “About This Blog”:

I believe that it is only a matter of time before enterprise software consists of only four types of application:

The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, along with Dell, Howard University, and the University of Texas Libraries, just launched the online library Avoice that features primary documents related to the contributions of African-Americans who have served in the US Senate and House since the 1870s.

You can access virtual exhibits (containing legislation, photos, debates, timelines) chronicling black lawmakers’ efforts related to the Voting Rights Act, Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday Bill, the dismantling of the apartheid system in South Africa, and the formation of the Congressional Black Caucus.

The University of Texas Libraries digitized Congressional Black Caucus records (photos, speeches, political . . . [more]

Confirmation this morning from Lexis, that U.S. Adults More Likely to Turn to the Web For Legal Information, New Survey From lawyers.com Reveals.

Almost three times as many U.S. adults today turn to the Internet to get advice and information about legal matters, aside from asking a lawyer, than they did six years ago (27% in 2006 versus 10% in 2000), according to a new survey conducted by Harris Interactive.

“Besides lawyers, traditional sources of legal advice, such as friends and family, are on the decline today as consumers increasingly turn to widely-available online resources to become better informed

The World Bank has created Doing Business, a database of economic and regulatory indicators that are comparable across 175 economies.

The site includes a Law Library, “the largest free online collection of business laws and regulations”.

For each country, one can find laws on such topics as banking and credit, bankruptcy, companies, labour, securities, taxation and trade.

Cross-posted to Library Boy. . . . [more]

The most recent issue of The Lawyer’s Weekly (vol. 26, no. 17) has an article entitled The meta menace: what you can’t see could come back to haunt you which discusses the many problems that can arise when legal professionals forget to clean up the metadata embedded into computer files before distributing documents.

Metadata can include changes made, names of previous document authors, document revisions and versions, and hidden text.

“Problems can arise if law firms send files to clients or opposing counsel that still contains markup. It may as well be hard copy full of sticky notes. Consequences may . . . [more]

GlobaLex, an electronic legal collection run by the Hauser Global Law School Program at New York University School of Law, recently published a Research Guide on International Health Law.

“While globalization has facilitated world trade and economic growth, it has also enabled regional epidemics to spread at unprecedented speed worldwide. A chilling example is the SARS epidemic, which started in China and quickly spread to two dozen countries. This research guide provides information about the general trends in global diseases and legal efforts against them, effects on trade and human rights law, and legal research in the new field . . . [more]

I was at an orientation for law students at Osgoode today where the faculty’s accomplishments were featured, and I realized that we’ve never mentioned the German Law Journal here on Slaw. A creation of Osgoode prof Peer Zumbansen, it’s a monthly online peer-reviewed journal in English publishing articles about German constitutional law among other subjects. From the Journal’s description of its ambit:

The German Law Journal serves an international audience as the first and only on-line, English-language report on developments in German and European jurisprudence. With regard to both Public Law and Private Law in Germany, as well as

I just read that today Google unveiled a new service, Google Archive Search, whereby it provides accessibility – i.e. search function – to various online news archives. I gather Google will serve the function of the traditional search index/abstract tool for the various news databases whose content has been made available to Google, and Google will direct searchers to those news sites. The news sites of course may (or likely will) charge for access to the full text of any selected articles. Searches will be free to the user. The archive search interface offers various ways of limiting searches . . . [more]

I’ve lately been the demise of the CD to family and friends. This is only my interpretation, but it is difficult to find and purchase classical or jazz CD’s in Victoria. So I’ve been thinking of moving over to IPOD technology and downloading music as well as e-books. But a colleague sent me an article reminding me of how complicated e-books are to use and the prolems with the different formats. I did a quick search and couldn’t find e-books on the Barnes & Noble site (it appears they no longer support ebooks), amazon.ca had strange results, and Foyles, God . . . [more]

L’ennemi numéro un d’Internet, c’est assurément la peur. Un nouvel exemple provient de ce titre choc du Observer selon lequel “New data theft scandal rocks subcontinent’s call centres“. Il est vrai que la standardiste Quitte à être manichéiste, autant que ce soit une femme. indienne, «voleuse de job», remplit bien ce rôle de «générateur de craintes»: et la «standardiste indienne» est pour les nords-américains ce que le «plombier polonais» est pour les européens de l’ouest. Dans le cas qui nous intéresse, c’est loin, c’est méconnu, et maintenant, ça vole nos données personnelles.

L’article est un tantinet irritant car, . . . [more]

Two items in today’s papers show that there appears to be a global trend towards smaller libraries, with the justification being that it’s all available online anyway.
In Bangor Maine, users will be moved out of the main library room into three small upper rooms, as the librarians pack up 750 boxes of the collection. We can say that it’s all on the online services, but losing 15,000 books has to have an impact.
And on the other side of the world, a story from the SMH as profs at the UNSW discovered the library‘s collection of international law . . . [more]