A number of great things are emerging from “library land” following last week’s Computers in Libraries conference in D.C.. As a pre-conference event to the upcoming Canadian Library Association conference in Montreal May 29-June 1, 2009, the CLA Emerging Technologies Interest Group has organized some workshop sessions with prominent emerging technologies librarian Jessamyn West for the morning of Friday, May 29th. In the afternoon they will be holding a “Library Camp” of unconference sessions. This will be a fantastic opportunity to bring some of our brightest minds together to nudge Canadian libraries into the future. Cost is $100 . . . [more]

I hope that where you are is not as grey, cold and wet as Toronto is this morning. Not an inspiring way to start a new week. But this post on the Darien Statements on Libraries and Librarians (from blyberg.net) is enough to compensate for the lack of spring on this April morning. . . . [more]

Last week Canada was all about new funding for VCs; but this week in the U.S. saw Essex Woodland Health Ventures close a new(-ish) $900 million bio fund , and even Google will apparently put some of its new $100 million venture fund into bio investments.

This week also saw one of my personal annual Canadian highlights: the 2009 Gairdner Award winners were announced. Here’s one area where we don’t need to trumpet anything to be world-class. 73 Gairdner winners in the last 50 years have also become Nobel laureates. Keep an eye out for the 50th . . . [more]

If you haven’t seen and heard Kutiman’s efforts, be prepared to be blown away.

Ophir Kutiel, his real name, is a 27-year-old Israeli musician who spent something like a month straight in his room/studio scanning YouTube for music videos that would lend themselves to being mixed together, layered, looped and generally mashed into a coherent, attractive — no, better: really good — piece of music. In that time he married many bits into seven songs, all of which you can hear (and see) at Thru-You.com.

For me, there’s a sense of joy here that is completely infectious. All seven . . . [more]

CBC News this morning, “Canadian Private Member’s Bill Targets Cyberbullying,” tells us this:

A Vancouver MP wants to amend the Criminal Code to target children and teenagers who use mobile phones and the internet to bully others. Currently, the code makes harassment, libel and spreading false messages criminal offences.

Do we need a law on harassment by electronic media, to go along with the general Criminal Code prohibition [s. 264]?

Do we need all our laws amended to say “by electronic means”? or a general statute that says “whatever the law prohibits, that prohibition applies as . . . [more]

Lawyers often need to know what people are saying. This became apparent to me today when gathering material for sentencing submissions and I was asked to gather material on the scope of publication of the offence.

I looked at the usual suspects:

• Canadian Newsstand – a ProQuest database available to me through my public library
• Infomart
• Google (web and blog search)
• Facebook groups
• Twitter

During my peek I found a couple of text articles on radio station websites. I know that Slaw readers will share my Ah Ha moment.

The web is filled with different types of media, including streaming . . . [more]

As reported in the Globe and Mail, among other media outlets, the Canadian Judicial Council has recommended to the Minister of Justice that Justice Paul Cosgrove be removed from office. Pursuant to s.99 (1) of the Constitution Act, 1867:

…the Judges of the Superior Courts shall hold office during good behaviour, but shall be removable by the Governor General on Address of the Senate and House of Commons.

The Judicial Council’s full report is available in PDF and there is a summary on the Council’s website.

The Council acts under the authority of the Judges Act R.S., 1985, . . . [more]

CAIJ, the Centre d’accès à l’information juridique (the network of law libraries associated with the Québec Bar Association), today launched a mobile version of its suite of free online legal research products.

CAIJ | mobile will provide access to:

• CAIJ’s online catalogue
• its databases of legislation, case law and legal literature
• JuriBistro TOPO, the CAIJ knowledgebase of hundreds of legal questions and answers from 57 fields of law
• access to Quebec Bar Association publications such as Développements récents (annual reviews of areas of law), the Collection de droit (Bar School materials), and proceedings of the annual Bar Association congresses

Here’s a little update on the conference, perhaps the most important singe piece of information I have seen TODAY!

And on a related note, the new Autopilot service from Gmail… . . . [more]

On my flight back to Toronto, I decided to make use of this time to make my contribution to the ‘bits and bytes’ that have gone before me from a 35,000 foot view (how appropriate considering where I am). I wanted to start by stating the obvious, I am a business owner. I continue to manage a litigation support company as I have for the past 8 years. I offer that so readers know the perspective I could take concerning best practices related to electronic evidence management and litigation support. However, the important point is that I am viewing this . . . [more]

We can all prepare for the onslaught of April Fools’ day stories spreading across the web today. Most of which are neither clever nor amusing. But the Guardian has managed to get a laugh out of me by poking fun at the recent Twitter obsession in the media (represented in the Globe by stories like Margaret Wente’s “Ego Tweeto, Ergo Sum” and Ian Brown’s musings that twittering is motivated by a fear of death) with their story:

Twitter switch for Guardian, after 188 years of ink

A mammoth project is also under way to rewrite the whole

Slaw’s RSS feed for comments hasn’t been working properly, for some people at least, for the last four or five days, for reasons that we don’t yet understand. We are working to fix the problem, of course, but in the meantime come on down to the website to see some good discussions.

UPDATE 11:25 ET: The comment feed appears to be working again now. Please let us know if you’re still experiencing difficulties. . . . [more]