There’s a new Columbia research study that looks at our ever growing reliance on search engines for memory recall. Not a ton of surprises here. Yes, we’ve become more reliant, especially for certain types of information. We’re also becoming better at remembering the successful search strategies that led us to obtaining certain facts. In some cases, our memory of the search strategy is better than our recall of the trivia itself.

Oh, and three cheers for Columbia for including an embed code within their video player! So I can show you this:

. . . [more]

In a bit of tragic irony last week, I finished my post on some of Canada’s constitutional documents and hit the publish button and left Slaw to discover that Dalhousie, and indeed, Canada had suffered a terrible loss with the passing of Professor Peter Aucoin. I’m sure that many Slaw readers are familiar with the name as he was one of, if not the, preeminent scholar on Canadian government and public service; he was a key figure in many Royal Commissions and published books and journal articles of high quality, too numerous to mention here. His scholarship and contributions . . . [more]

Every so often I’m struck by how impressive the crow is. This strutting, raucous, scavenger — a “murder” en masse — exhibits the sort of behaviour that should give us pause whenever we’re feeling smug about our perch atop the smartness pole. Not that this corvid, cousin to jays and magpies, is about to solve Fermat’s theorem, perfect the hydrogen bomb, or do anything so humanly intelligent. But the bird can solve problems, recognize faces, teach others (or learn from others), and outsmart human beings from time to time.

For example, a few years back Chatham, Ontario, was beleaguered by . . . [more]

This is a post in a series to appear occasionally, setting out some articles that contributors at Slaw are reading and that you might find interesting. These tend to be longer than blog posts and shorter than books, just right for that stolen half hour on the weekend. It’s also likely that most of them won’t be about law — just right for etc.

Please let us have your recommendations for what we and our readers might like. . . . [more]

After the 2010 earthquake destroyed Haiti’s law libraries, the Law Library Microform Consortium (LLMC), a non-profit cooperative of libraries, spearheaded the Haiti Legal Patrimony Project. 13 U.K., U.S., and German libraries contributed unique materials from their collections to help rebuild a collection of Haitian law online via the LLMC Digital database. Many of the 700+ titles on the master list (initially compiled from Law Library of Congress and Columbia University Law Library bibliographic data) have been digitized. The online collection comprises constitutions, statutes, codes, periodicals, and legal treatises. The Haiti Project is one of many digital law library initiatives. . . . [more]

on account of prosecutorial misconduct at trial. The prosecuting lawyers put “evidence” in front the jury that the judge had ruled inadmissible. When caught out, they suggested the jury be told to disregard that evidence. The trial judge was not impressed. (http://tsn.ca/mlb/story/?id=371713)

There is to be a Sept 2 hearing to decide if there will be a new trial.

Canadian judges are somtimes equally unforgiving where prosecutorial misconduct is involved which results in the jury hearing inadmissible evidence – see R v. Kusk, 1999 ABCA 49 – even where Charter issues are not mentioned. . . . [more]

As those of you who’ve hopped in your bumper car on the brand new Google Plus ride will know, Google is working to bring many or most of its offerings onto one fairground. Plus, or + as Prince might have it, is a step in that direction, integrating Buzz, chat, Picassa, YouTube, News (aka Sparks), and the new microblogging platform, with presumably more to come. Perhaps as a way of getting us to think of all things Google as a unity, they’ve released a nonce device, called What do you love?. And interestingly, the front end is the simplest . . . [more]

I have recently returned to work after a maternity leave. Now I am struggling with how to get back up to speed on all things legal research-related. Despite my best intentions, I was unable to stay on top of Slaw posts or Supreme Court decisions while at home. Now I am constantly second-guessing my research, worried that I have missed some new resource or decision. On the plus side, I am pleasantly surprised when I discover ‘new’ features on my favourite websites and online databases; of course, I have no idea how long they’ve been there, or what other ones . . . [more]

This is the first of a series of posts that were prepared as the sequel to a request by Professor Daniel Poulin to explain the character and purpose of “Halsburys” and the “C.E.D.” to his seminar on legal information at the University of Montreal. The first post is a generic description of the Halsburys Model and will be followed by posts on Halsburys Laws of Canada, the Canadian Encyclopedic Digests, and the Juris Classeur Quebec, three publications of the same ilk or genre that are designed to provide legal researchers with “a complete statement” of the laws of Canada, the . . . [more]

New tool allowing you to find out if your email address was stolen in a hacker breach. The online tool is called HackNotifier.

[ français / English ]

Depuis mon retour dans le milieu de la justice en 2005, j’ai entendu à maintes reprises bâtonniers, ministres de la justice, juges en chef, professeurs d’université et tutti quanti dire que leur priorité est l’accès à la justice pour tous ! Comment ne pas être d’accord ? C’est un des principes fondamentaux de nos sociétés libres et démocratiques. 

Un autre de ces principes est « nul ne peut ignorer la loi » : on impose comme obligation à tous de connaître toutes les règles qui gouvernent notre société. L’accès à la justice, c’est aussi ça  . . . [more]

Tories kill access to information database

Tories to create government-run media centre: report

What’s the adage about being careful what one wishes for lest one get it? . . . [more]