Next week is Banned Books Week and there’s an interesting entry page which Google has mounted.

Each year, the American Library Association’s (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom receives hundreds of reports on books and other materials that were “challenged” (their removal from school or library shelves was requested). The ALA estimates the number represents only about a quarter of the actual challenges. “Most Challenged” titles include the popular “Harry Potter” series of fantasy books for children by J.K. Rowling. The series drew complaints from parents and others who believe the books promote witchcraft to children.

The challenges reported

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As I was preparing a presentation I will be giving at Marcus Evans’ Document Retention and E-Discovery: Best Practices for Canadian Corporations conference in Toronto on October 19th regarding the understanding and management of E-docs and records, I realised that these three concepts are confused by everyone, even the Legislator. Here is a list of the confusing definitions you will find in different statutes from Canada, Ontario and Quebec. If you know of any other interesting ones, I would love to know! . . . [more]

Corn today.

There's a really interesting video of a keynote given by Larry Lessig to the LinuxWorld conference. It's long -- more than an hour -- but like most of Lessig's presentations, really well done.

...

While I may be in Halifax, I am a native New Brunswicker so with the New Brunswick Election slated for Monday, Sept. 18 I feel that I need to be rep-re-sentin’ by providing a quick primer on the election. Prior to the election being called the membership of the Legislature was composed as follows: Progressive Conservative 28, Liberal 26, Independent 1.

I will edit this post with the results and media reports after the election.

NB Office of the Chief Electoral Officer

Bureau de la directrice générale des élections

Registered Political Parties

Political Parties (alphabetically)

Liberal Party of NB

Liberal

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This morning, courtesy of Joel Alleyne, I’m at Borden Ladner Gervais, at the Toronto – New York Knowledge Management Roundtable.

The session started off with a presentation by Irene Taylor of Praxis on The Rise of the Knowledge/Creative Professional which reprised her Lexpert articles analyzing the factors that appeared to characterize a group of lawyers, whom Lexpert chose as especially creative.

Ms. Taylor used a lot of psychometric measures, which the audience had some difficulty with. I suspect that lawyers are naturally sceptical of some of the more prescriptive parts of psychometrics, as they are of . . . [more]

This is a posting I received through the AALL FCIL listserv which I thought a worthwile addition to SLAW’s discussion on preservation and digital archives:

The USIP report prepared “Temporary Courts, Permanent Records” examines and makes recommendations for the permanent retention of the records of the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and Rwanda (ICTR), the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL), the Special Panels and Serious Crimes Unit in East Timor, and the internationalized courts and prosecutors in Kosovo.

I was astounded that there was even an issue about whether or not to preserve these records. The . . . [more]

The Library Research Seminar IV, The Library in its Socio-Cultural Context:
Issues for Research and Practice, taking place at the Univsity of Western Ontario on October 10-12 2007, has issued a call for papers:

We invite papers that critically explore:

• the intellectual contexts that inform library research and practice
• the local, community contexts that shape the development and implementation of library programs and services
• the policy issues and general social forces shaping libraries
• the broad cultural trends affecting libraries
• multi- or interdisciplinary perspectives on the everyday contexts of libraries affecting their collections, services, budgets, user groups, external relations etc.

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CanadExport is Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada’s flagship newsletter. Its articles promote Canadian exports abroad by discussing trade policies and agreements, general market intelligence, potential markets, and trade and investment opportunities.
This FREE publication always surprises me with the useful and valuable information it provides. Examples of such gems include:

–data on China-India trade

–overview of the tax agreement between Canada and Finland

–Brazil’s growth forecast

–China’s consumption of natural resources

–Canada’s international trade and investment performance

You can search the articles going back to 1999, and you can also subscribe to the email . . . [more]

Slawyer Joel Alleyne gets a page in the Globe and Mail‘s Technology Quarterly Magazine (TQ), as he talks to writer Grant Buckler about the joys and anxieties involved in being CIO and CKO at Borden Ladner Gervais LLP. (I’m blowed if I can find the piece on the web, though, which is sad — either because of my ineptness or because a technology mag ought to be really really good at offering itself up on the internet. )

Snippets:

“[U]nequivocally IT matters to our lawyers and our client relationships.”

BLG has something like 150 servers and 2000 PC’s.

“One . . . [more]

As part of its 100th anniversary celebration, the American Society of International Law has identified 100 very concrete and specific ways in which international law affects each one of us in daily life. The organization is American, but most examples apply to Canada as well.

“We did endeavor to identify ways in a range of contexts, from daily life, to leisure and travel, to commerce, to health and the environment, personal liberty, and public safety and situations of armed conflict. Some ways are of relatively recent vintage, while others are long-standing…”

“In addition to the individual experts and members who

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