We came across this recently in the 1959 Canadian Law List: The Law Library of the Future!

Let’s compare the concerns of 1959 with 2012: Economy (the new tech costs less), Space saving (we all have better uses for space), Convenience (a.k.a. ease of access, dare I say on your desktop?), No binding costs or problems (a thing of the past), No bookshelves (see space). Does this sound familiar?

I do note that this new technology wasn’t cheap. Using the Bank of Canada inflation calculator: The SCRs that cost $118 in 1959 would cost $941.69 in 2012; this represents . . . [more]

Following the inspiring lead of Connie Crosby and Shaunna Mireau, I’m sharing a summer project list. I have quite a long summer project list, and it has had to face regular trimming. Summer rarely seems to offer the generous spare time foreseen during the hectic days of the late spring term.

My summer project list contains standard mundane tasks like reorganizing files – physical and electronic – as well as institutional projects difficult to achieve during the academic term, and taking a bird’s-eye view of library collections and services. I won’t bore anyone with those.

Some of the invigorating . . . [more]

As short as 6 weeks ago in a SLAW post on my most frequently used iPad apps I bemoaned the fact that there was not a robust word processor for the iPad.

Either I overlooked what must have been a recent update to Pages for iPad at that time or in fact there was an actual update in the last 6 weeks, since it is now relatively easy to add footnotes (and headers and footers, among other things) while word processing in Pages.

The online help from Apple here discusses how to do this (it is simply a matter of . . . [more]

I’ve seen other summer reading lists lately and thought it would be fun to put together my own list of books currently or recently on my nightstand. There’s quite a range here–management/leadership type titles, geek girl titles, and some challenging fiction. I’m not really one for light reading! And, there’s probably no way I can get through all of these in the summer, but I can certainly try. And of course in putting this list together I found even more new books, so I better get reading.

What is on your summer reading list?

Here is the list (with no . . . [more]

Looking for some good reading for the long weekend? Head on over to Attorney@Work and grab a copy of the Field Guide for Mobile Lawyers. Will a bit of help from some of their travelling friends, Merrilyn, Joan and Mark have put together a great collection of tips for lawyers that want to get some work done away from the office. It is a must read for every mobile lawyer. . . . [more]

Happy Canada Day long weekend! Okay, it’s still a few hours early… but before you head out on the road or away to the cottage, your friends at Stem would like to invite you to re-visit the Canadian Law Blogs directory.

We’ve orchestrated a few design changes to celebrate our country’s 145th birthday! Canadian-ized the place, if you will; planting a couple of dozen easter eggs — Terrance and Phillip would be proud!

I’ll even start you with an example: Fodden’s Beer Fridge (formerly Simon’s Canadian Law Blogs Google co-op search) has a ‘Crack a Cold One’ button . . . [more]

According to the Alberta Information and Privacy Commissioner, as of April 30 of this year, 151 privacy breaches have been reported to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner. The majority of reported breaches involve human error, such as misdirected email, faxes, stolen or lost unencrypted electronic devices and improper record and electronic media destruction. Many of these breaches are preventable with proper security systems and encryption.

Since May of 2010, Alberta’s Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) requires private sector organizations to report privacy breaches that present a real risk of significant harm to the Information and Privacy Commissioner. . . . [more]

You’ve likely seen a few references now to an upcoming free online course offered by Google: Power Searching with Google. The tagline is “…a short course on becoming a great internet searcher.” For this post, I’ll leave aside speculation about how one becomes a “great internet searcher” using, presumably, one suite of products.

Some discussion I’ve seen refers to this as Google’s MOOC – massive open online course. I’d like to engage in a bit of pedantry for a moment and question whether that’s an appropriate characterization of Google’s offering. A course that requires use of a Google account . . . [more]

In a decision dated June 21, 2012, the Federal Court made it clear that, for purposes of copyright, using a hyperlink is not copying the material it points to. That seems obvious, but its nice to see it recognized by the courts. The Warman and National Post v Fournier decision also said that – at least in the circumstances of the case at bar – reproducing 1/4 of an original article was not a substantial part for copyright purposes, and was thus not a copyright violation.

This follows a Supreme Court of Canada decision last fall that said that a . . . [more]

Online survey tool Zoomerang has been acquired by Survey Monkey, and will move all their client accounts (and surveys) over to the new platform by year’s end.

I remember choosing Zoomerang because I thought the lack of a “monkey” in the name would be mildly more acceptable to business audiences. Feature wise, the two products were pretty much on par; so the next best differentiating factor I could come up with was how business friendly the name was.

In hindsight, I did later realize that “zoomerang” wasn’t all that conservative of a name either. Not that the online survey . . . [more]

It’s darn near impossible to keep up with the changes Facebook makes to your privacy and configuration settings. The latest change is a big one: Facebook just removed everyone’s contact email address from their profiles and replaced it with an @facebook.com address. This was done without asking your permission.
Apparently Facebook’s internal email address – the one they use for notifications and password resets – was not changed, just the one listed on your profile in your Timeline.
Facebook has had its own email since 2010. Almost no one uses it. Presumably this is an attempt to get more people . . . [more]

A recent post by Rich McCue on his blog Rich’s Random Thoughts got me thinking. More: got me motivated into action. Rich is a systems administrator at the University of Victoria (and someone who was helpful getting Slaw launched, back in the day) who is interested in helping academics do their thing better. In this case, he’s put together a set of instructions for making e-books — at no cost to the management.

Essentially it involves composing in Google Docs, converting the exported HTML file into the industry-standard ePub format using an open source app called Sigil, and then, to . . . [more]