For some time I have wanted to take concept or topic mapping, into the computing sphere of legal research. Topic or concept mapping essentially means mapping our ideas and knowledge in a visual format, a boon for the visual learners out there. The tool I have been looking at is Grokker. Utilizing the free preview of Grokker I have run a search that illustrates how it works.

If you select the chaoulli search that I have linked to below, you will be taken to the Grokker search page. Once you have followed the link, select: Zoomable Map on the left . . . [more]

Interesting December 4, 2005, story in the New York Times entitled “Snared in the Web of a Wikipedia Liar” that is a good reminder to everyone that the quality and reliability of content on Wikipedia relies directly on the concept of “garbage in, garbage out.” . . . [more]

Heads up to Canadian IP Lawyers:

“Canadian industrial designs are now available on the web. The Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) launched the Canadian Industrial Designs Database as a response for better online service and easier access to industrial designs. The new database includes over 10,000 designs registered since June 15, 2002 and is fully searchable by text, title, registration number, classification code, court order number, client reference number and registration date.”

http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/app/cipo/id/displaySearch.do?language=eng . . . [more]

This from Kim Nayyer, National Research Lawyer at Miller Thomson LLP:

I didn’t see a reference to this CALL post on Slaw and I thought readers who don’t subscribe to CALL-L might be interested. It’s basically a catalogue of government gazettes for countries – the attempt was to include all countries with online gazettes (but likely federal only for each country, as is the case for Canada).

The site is at http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/gazettes/ and it sounds like it was begun by some students as a project. The letter grouping links on the home page refer to country names.

I thought I’d do a simple search for law AND Canada OR Canadian in Google and Yahoo (and Yahoo’s Mindset, set all the way to “research”) to see those sites that have been updated in the last 3 months. Some observations about the results:

1. Google’s results were more interesting and fruitful than Yahoo’s, including those from Mindset. Now this might change from day to day, but it means for me at least that I’m not making a huge mistake in going with Google for the first round of internet searching.
2. There’s not a whole lot out there about or of

One of the recommendations I made in my LLM thesis entitled Access to Law-Related Information in Canada in the Digital Age was a proposal to implement Professor Friedland’s vision from the mid 1970’s for a Canadian law-related encyclopedia that would answer real-life legal questions. In his 1975 study entitled Access to the Law, Professor Friedland concluded that the typical Canadian did not have easy access to the law and had difficulty understanding the law once accessed. One of his recommendations was to call for a legal encyclopedia for each province that would be updated regularly. The following is a . . . [more]

Further to my previous post (making my LL.M. thesis available online), some readers may not have yet bookmarked the Theses Canada Portal website from Library and Archives Canada.

The mission of Theses Canada is to “acquire and preserve a comprehensive collection of Canadian theses at Library and Archives Canada (LAC), to provide access to this valuable research within Canada and throughout the world.” Increasingly, you will find recent Canadian Master’s and Doctoral theses online (in full-text). For example, I did a title keyword search using “internet” and “law” at this site and uncovered, among other things, the following recent . . . [more]

I have posted my recently completed LL.M. thesis online for those who might be interested. It is entitled Access to Law-Related Information in Canada in the Digital Age and is available in its entirety or in the following chapter headings on a separate page on SLAW:

During some recent web surfing, I only just realized that the Canadian Bar Association (CBA) has its own XML feed, for those interested. The CBA also has a technology resources page. Some of the recent articles are on topics of technologies for solo, home and mobile lawyers and effective computer presentations for lawyers. The site also links to articles from practicepro.ca and provides “feeds of the week” and links to other legal technology sites. . . . [more]

This from Law Librarian Blog (in turn from the editor of House of Butter):

Infolaw, “the longest-standing UK legal portal”, has opened up its entire Lawfinder database to free browse access. Lawfinder provides structured access to over 100,000 UK legal documents and resources, plus alerting and referencing tools.

Our firm is on the verge of rolling out its SharePoint portal. Akin to renovating one’s home, it is difficult to resist the urge to tackle one more project “while you’re at it”. Project managers warned me about scope creep but that didn’t stop my inclination to completely overhaul the desktop.

This background is intended to give some context to our decision to voluntarily remove the QL “classic” direct connection from our network tonight. From tomorrow onwards, all of our core Canadian online legal research services will be delivered through browser interfaces.

As the head of our portal project, I . . . [more]

Customers have been pushing the legal publishers of annual publication editions and online services to create “archival” versions of the publications. The first one I have seen is

Martin’s Archival Criminal Code from Canada Law Book.

From the description:

Martin’s Archival Criminal Code is a unique and convenient online resource that offers you easy access to fifty years of the Criminal Code and commentary in one place. This archival collection from 1955 to the present will enable you to access the Criminal Code at a specific point in time.

It looks like a good idea, and I am interested . . . [more]