“Libraries turn page to thrive in digital age,” an article in yesterday’s The Globe and Mail, looks at Canadian public libraries’ efforts to remain relevant and user-focused in the age of quick Google searches and comfortable bookstore chains. The initiatives mentioned include:

-lobby coffee shops
-computers with Internet access
-meeting rooms/spaces for group work and collaboration
-comfortable chairs
-rock concerts
-teen nights
-newspapers from different countries
-implementing a “retail” approach emphasizing customer service
-more electronic materials in the collection (e-books, journals, databases)

These libraries must be doing something right: the article reports that the Canadian Urban Libraries Council . . . [more]

I have to shake my head in wonder each time I hear about a new search engine: it has to be almost the best example of chutzpah in the worldThe classic example, of course, is the defendant who killed his mother and father and then pleads for mercy because he’s an orphan. to say that someone’s competing with Google.

Zuula is the most recent one I’ve heard about. (Thanks to Research Buzz.) The move here is the meta move, which is popular with competitors: take the high ground and encircle. But typical meta-search engine’s aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, . . . [more]

to a piece in Legal Technology on some of the issues that law librarians need to think through in acquiring digital material. . . . [more]

The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) at the University of Ottawa released a white paper yesterday that calls on the federal government to enact a data security breach notification law.

Such a law would require organizations, government agencies and businesses to notify individuals when their personal information is exposed to potential theft and misuse due to a computer security breach.

From the introduction of the White Paper:

“Recognizing that individuals need to know when their personal information has been put at risk in order to mitigate potential identity fraud damages, most states in the U.S. now

There will be a panel in Ottawa early next month entitled Net Neutrality: A Public Discussion on the Future of the Internet in Canada:

“Please join us for a an important public discussion on the future of the Internet in Canada. Network neutrality recently became a major issue in the United States when telecommunications companies issued public statements asking for the ability to charge Internet content-providers for preferential access to Internet users. That meant that big corporations, especially media conglomerates, would get to Internet users fastest while smaller ones, which would be unable to pay the ‘tolls’, would be

Le 14 décembre 2006, à la toute fin de la session parlementaire, le projet de loi 48 réformant la Loi sur la protection du consommateur du Québec, a été adopté (pdf) intégrant des nouveautés pour les contrats de consommation en ligne. Malgré la hâte de la fin de session parlementaire, le texte adopté, publié il y a quelques jours, début janvier, présente quelques changements par rapport au projet de loi initial.

Outre le fait que cet amendement va dans la bonne direction, j’aimerai mentionner la clairvoyance des rédacteurs qui ont tenu compte du mémoire de l’Union des consommateurs (pdf) qui, . . . [more]

I’m compiling a list of Supreme Court decisions and one of the data I’m collecting for each is the neutral citation. I’ve just noticed something that should have been obvious to me from the first: when using alpha-numeric sorting, neutral citations don’t sort properly by the ordinal number (i.e. the number that is located where the page number would be in a traditional citation.). This is because the ordinal numbers don’t all have three places. Thus 2006 SCC 3 (the citation for Young v. Bella) winds up along with the pages numbered 30 etc. because the computer can’t supply . . . [more]

JUSTICE SERVED has just announced its winners in the 2006 competition for court websites. While two out of the top three are Commonwealth courts, no Canadian court was mentionedIn fairness, the Alberta courts site came seventh in 2001..

2006 Top 10 Court Website Awards
THE SUPREME COURT SINGAPORE
The Singapore Ministry of Law and Subordinate Courts were past winners, but this is the first appearance of their Supreme Court, which consists of the Court of Appeal and the High Court.
More important, this website deserves highest honor for the number and sophistication of online court services. It has online . . . [more]

How many North American law firms would sponsor poetry readings in their offices, and have them attended by goodly numbers of practising lawyers.

I can’t think of any – but the City firms are developing quite a reputation for doing just that.

At Linklaters the Poet Laureate Andrew Motion introduced an evening devoted to Keith Douglas,

As one journalist (somewhat breathlessly) put it:

‘Suddenly poetry is running wild across City law firms as lawyers recognise that their stock in trade is also the raw material of sublime art. Next up then is [Poet in the City’s] super evening on . . . [more]

LISNews is looking for nominations for the top 10 library blogs – the ones you read every day. Here’s the post: http://lisnews.org/articles/07/01/08/1519200.shtml . . . [more]

Dayton, Ohio January 8, 2007 – LexisNexis has launched a new web site, designed to showcase its Total Practice Solutions for the full spectrum of law firms. The site offers attorneys targeted solutions for law practices in the areas of client development, research, practice management, and litigation services.

The new Web site, which serves the U.S. legal market, reflects the company’s growth from a research provider to now offering a full range of products and services that help law firms succeed in all areas of their practice, an approach called Total Practice Solutions.

Which is consistent with what Eagan is . . . [more]

There’s an interesting essay in today’s NY Times, “How to Speak a Book“The free NYTimes link maker doesn’t work with this URL because it’s to a special section, I think, so you may need to have registered with the Times., by Richard Powers. It’s essentially a paean to dictation as the means of writing a book. Powers, once a serious computer geek and now a novelist of some renown, dictates his novels to his tablet PC. (He doesn’t say what software he uses but my bet is that it’s Dragon.)

I find the piece interesting but . . . [more]