According to a report in the Ann Arbor News the information and published works database company ProQuest is in financial trouble:

The accounting problems at ProQuest Co. raise questions about whether the company will continue to exist – at least under that name – even as it begins moving into a new $34 million headquarters building on Eisenhower Parkway next Monday….

Its problems are big enough that it is planning to sell off its most profitable division to raise cash – and company officials say they are not counting out selling the entire company to maximize shareholder value.

Readers may . . . [more]

The CLA Standing Committee on Intellectual Property and Public Access – International Trade Treaties Working Group has two documents that should be of interest to SLAWers: their report on the WTO/TRIPS agreement, which concludes that the agreement is not especially hostile to balanced domestic copyright legislation, and advises so-called “user groups” and other advocating for balance to confront claims that “international agreements” require extension of ownership domain. The Working Group has also created a GATS and Libraries Pathfinder to assist information retrieval.
Thanks to Lindsay Johnston of the U of A for this. . . . [more]

Well it seems official after the weekend’s vote (barring a re-count) that Montenegro is the world’s newest country, pretty much completing the break-up of the old Yugoslavia (although Kosovo’s status has yet to be resolved). I did some checking this morning to see what law-related resources exist for the new soon-to-be country and it looks like some work needs to be done. Most links are still under the heading for Serbia-Montenegro, which was the latest name for the surviving Yugoslav rump, consisting of a federation of the two entities so that will need to be changed. The link from WorldLII . . . [more]

In the world of legal research, we often take indexes for granted. Alice JanischThanked by David Mullan for a great index to his adminstrative law text. taught me years ago at CLIC that the contribution an intelligent indexer can make to improving the accessibility of legal information is extraordinary.

My single favourite case research tool is the Index to the All England Law Reports, a topical index with multiple cross-references that permits me to see in less than five minutes just how English law has evolved on a particular topic. Much faster than Halsbury’s Laws, even in its electronic . . . [more]

Thanks to Google design whiz, Dennis Hwang for another witty logo this time commemorating Conan Doyle’s birthday.
The other neat feature is that if you click on the original logo, it runs a search of Sir Arthur and his birthday.
Google has an amusing archive of its logos. . . . [more]

The news is that there is no news. but there is an article in The Times today which reviews progress, and explains the copyright issues specific to the UK. With luck the database will be available in the new academic year. But don’t hold your breath! . . . [more]

While I was looking the other way, Slaw received its 1000^th comment. (I don’t usually bold my links, but this one deserves it.) It happened quietly yesterday at 3.27 p.m. E.D.T. and the lucky commenter was Connie Crosby. Drats, I missed it by one… and so did Steve Matthews. This is turning into a good, long, interesting conversation. . . . [more]

1. Legal Affairs
2. Legal Affairs: S. Snider, “Old Yeller: The illustrious history”
3. coloradoan.com: K. Lackett, “American legend Maya Angelou to discuss a life of empowerment”
4. NCTimes.com: J. Trageser, “Local jazz icon lays it all out in autobiography”
5. Library Clips
6. Library Clips: lists lists lists web2.0 lists lists lists
7. LibraryStuff
8. Web 2.0 Workgroup
9. O’Reilly’s Radar
10. Government 2.0 Think Tank
11. Dalhousie Law Library
12. Dalhousie University, Faculty of Law
13. ajaxWrite
14. Wikipedia: ajax
15. 1 Global Legal Monitor 2006 [pdf]
16. 1 Global Legal Monitor February 2006 [pdf]
17. Global Legal Information Network
18. ServiceDoc Info: Global Legal Monitor (Law Library of Congress)
19. My Shingle: Eight Reasons Solo Lawyers

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]