Simon Fodden’s last post reminded me of a question that someone asked me at the CALL conference: how do you keep up with Web 2.0? In other words, what current awareness sources do I use to stay current on new Web 2.0 applications and other developments?

My general answer is that I read a variety of blogs and surf the web. But I’m not sure that I really truly stay on top of things; I still feel like I hear about most things third-hand.

Is there a better answer? Are there any fantastic e-zines or blogs that are really “tapped . . . [more]

Earlier this week my colleague and I here at the Dal Law Library played a large role in organizing and orchestrating Professional Development Day for the Faculty of Law this year. The theme this year was technology and it was our goal to expose our faculty to some of the tools that are emerging that they could utilize inside (and outside) the classroom. We didn’t do anything that would be revolutionary to Slaw-ers but when dealing with a group with diverse technological capabilities our goal was exposure. We covered video conferencing, podcasting, surveys of students technological wants and needs, search . . . [more]

A link in a recent post by Patrick Cormier — La pratique du droit | Comment exploiter les technologies web 2.0? — led me to ajaxWrite and a cluster of other Web 2.0 applications. AjaxWikipedia: “Ajax, shorthand for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, is a Web development technique for creating interactive web applications.”Write seeks to be a fully-fledged word processor the latest version of which is always and everywhere available to you, no matter what platform you’re using, and free. (It only works with Firefox, though, so to test it you IE users sneak off to that special machine . . . [more]

Everyone’s reporting this, but just in case someone in our broadcast area hasn’t heard: The Library of Congress is publishing a Global Legal Monitor every month:

The Global Legal Monitor, an electronic publication of the Law Library of Congress, is intended for those who have an interest in legal developments from around the world…

This online publication will be updated frequently, drawing upon information selected from the Global Legal Information Network, official national legal publications, and reliable press sources. Occasionally, a special section may be added to include lectures, conferences, symposia, and exhibits on timely legal topics sponsored by the

Eight Reasons Solo Lawyers Should Use Law Libraries is a fantastic guest blog post on My Shingle.com by Mary Whisner of the M. G. Gallagher Law Library at the University of Washington School of Law, which I found courtesy of beSpacific.com (May 14/06).

Here is the summary:

One. Librarians.

Two: Books.

Three. Databases.

Four. Audiovisual materials.

Five. Space.

Six. Networking.

Seven. Services at a Distance.

Eight. Training.

Okay, some of this is obvious; however, her explanations are what make this really stand out. My favourite point is under “Space”:

* Many county law libraries also have conference rooms that you

Here is something that I’ll tuck away for possible (hopefully NOT) future reference … how to come to terms with and move on after the failure of a technology-based initiative as written by Dorothea Salo who writes at TechEssence.

Read it for yourself at TechEssence.Info. I hope you never need to know this either!

From this site’s “about page“:

Roy Tennant started TechEssence to address the need for simple, easy to understand information about information technology. He is lucky to be joined by a stellar cast of individuals who contribute their unique perspectives on technology and

There’s a new Canadian Law Blog out there … BC Criminal Law Blog … maintained by Stern & Albert. . . . [more]

LibraryThing has opened its doors to organizations such as law firms. A pricing structure has been put in place … $25 per year to 500 books and $50 per year to 5,000 books.

Check out the guidelines at Can Organizations Join LibraryThing? LibraryThing is working on some features that will prevent the collections for organization from negatively impacting the LibraryThing experience for those with personal collections. It also sounds like they will be developing further enhanced features that will be attractive to organizations with small library collections. Sounds interesting.

Considering the cost of feature-rich library software, which is sometimes more . . . [more]

Coverage of this issue has not gone very national from what I can see, but here are a couple of links to Alberta papers

Calgary Sun
Edmonton Journal (requires subscription)

The bill passed yesterday after debate was limited by the Klein government (following 6 hours of debate).

The most outlandish sections of the bill are as follows (ss. 4-6 are about briefing notes to Ministers (restricted for 5 years), s.7 restricts access to all documents supporting the auditor’s reports (15 years):

4 Section 6 is amended by adding the following after subsection (3):

(4) The right of access does not

I’ve started to work with the new Google Notebook and must say that I’m quite impressed. I’ve played around with the Firefox extension notebook and haven’t made much use of it. It only gives me one more place on my computer to make a note, and I’ve got quite a few of those already. But Google Notebook is different.

For one thing it’s Web 2.0, which means it’s available to to me wherever I have a browser and an internet connection and is, of course, cross-platform too. For another, it offers a bunch of features that seem quite handy. You . . . [more]

Major announcement this morning from a broad and loose coalition of public-interest oriented organizations and privacy and civil liberties groups.

They’ve released an open letterSignatories include, Association for Media and Technology in Education in Canada, Atlantic Provinces Library Association, BC Civil Liberties Association, BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association, BC Library Association, Colin Bennett, Professor of Political Science, University of Victoria, Canadian Association of University Teachers, Canadian Federation of Students, Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, Canadian Library Association, CLUE : The Canadian Association for Open Source, Consumers Association of Canada, Electronic Frontier Canada, Electronic Frontier Foundation, FLORA.org, . . . [more]