As I was shovelling snow on the NS Public Highways last week, (btw Connie, the best shovel is 24-in. Yukon Ergonomic Snow Pusher, lightweight, gets 2 feet of snow at once) I got to thinking about blogs, the usefulness of which is a popluar Slaw topic. So in the midst of a particularly heavy shovel full, I decided to do a little legal lit. review of traditional sources (Canadian context) and review some caselaw where Blogs are being mentioned.

It seems that Blogs have not yet made a forceful entrance in the Canadian courtroom. My fairly quick and dirty . . . [more]

With the escalation of fury we are witnessing over the publication (and re-publication) of the Danish cartoons my curiosity over Canadian blasphemy laws was aroused and I did a quick search of the CED on Westlaw. This is what results: “At common law, blasphemy and blasphemous libel consisted of the publication of contemptuous, reviling, scurrilous or ludicrous matter relating to God, Jesus Christ, the Bible, or the formularies of the Church of England. It was not blasphemy at common law to attack any religion except Christianity, and an attack on the Christian religion had to be such as tended to . . . [more]

The Canadian federal Department of Justice finally appears to be improving the currency of its online legislation, with the following formal announcement at http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/index/index.html:

Updates to Justice Laws Web page

The Department of Justice is in the process of upgrading its online ability to consolidate legislation and to provide for regular and timely updating of Acts and regulations on our public Web site. As of January 27, 2006, all Acts on this site have been updated to September 28, 2005 at a minimum and many have been updated to dates beyond this point, as will be indicated at the

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This is my hundredth Slaw posting and rather than post on legal information, research and the Technologies of access and knowledge analysis, I’d like to think about slaw as a community of knowledge and where we’ve come from since those trans-mondial postings about taxonomies of legal knowledge back in June en route to India.

Funnily enough what strike me this morning are not so much the innovations or the extraordinary Technologies of web-enabled collaborations, as much as the continuities.

We have in some sense been here before, but with tools of community that were less sustainable and more enclosed.

First . . . [more]

1. Educause Review: J. Campbell, “Changing a Cultural Icon: The Academic Library as Virtual Destination”
2. Boing Boing
3. Baidu
4. Guardian Unlimited: German ad boss apologises to bloggers
5. Jung von Matt
6. Spiegel Online, English Edition: The toilet walls strike back
7. The Galloping Beaver: I’m a toilet wall
8. coeruleus: Du Bist Deutschland
9. Manchester Guardian
10. Adweek: WPP Comments on French Controversy
11. CNNMoney.com: 101 Dumbest Moments in Business
12. CNNMoney.com: Imagining the Google Future
13. CNNMoney.com: Google is the Media
14. CNNMoney.com: Google as the Internet
15. CNNMoney.com: Google is dead
16. CNNMoney.com: Google is God
17. Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology
18. Teilhard de Chardin
19. Wikipedia: Omega

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Continued problems with Blogger tonight. Things I’ve posted haven’t gone up, and you might not even be able to reach my blog. The problem appears to be with the (Blogger-owned) host, blog*spot. For anyone wondering, there is a “status” page that updates us on what is happening; not sure if you need a Blogger account to view it: Blogger status page. Blah! . . . [more]

Yesterday I attended a talk by fellow librarian blogger Michael Stephens at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information Studies (FIS). The talk was called “Weblogs & Libraries: Communication, Conversation and the Blog People” which outlined the results from a survey he did of blogging librarians back in November for his PhD thesis at the University of North Texas. (I remember taking that survey!) He was in town as speaker at the OLA Superconference, and dropped by FIS to talk to MISt and PhD students, as well as the general librarian community. Thanks to Ted Tjaden for pointing . . . [more]

There’s no escaping it, apparently. Almost every day I see articles on the coming of e-books, and declarations they will replace the lovely bound books that I collect, read, annotate, store and dust occasionally.

Here’s a link to a recent article, “A Hundred Books in Your Pocket”, from the Wall Street Journal, January 21, 2006 by Terry Teachout. If that link doesn’t work please contact me if interested and I can send you a copy of the article.

He describes Sony’s Reader, a pocket sized e-book reader that makes use of E Ink and is slated to be on . . . [more]

At the law school and at the firm, there are regular backups that ensure you'll never lose but a smidgeon of data -- provided things are set up such that you save to the network and not just your hard drive.... Tim Bray, one of the Canadian IT biggies (now working for Sun) did a column on his weblog, Ongoing, on Protecting Your DataThe Rules · If you follow these, you almost certainly won’t lose data in any damaging way.Don’t use proprietary file formats.Don’t erase anything.Store everything twice.Do occasional ad-hoc and regular full backups.Note that these are not rules for professionally-managed data centers, who have incredibly complicated backup requirements and often live in a regulated environment. If you’re a pro, the only way to be safe is to hire an expert and throw some real money at the problem.This advice is aimed at the users of personal computers, whose needs are simpler and less variable.

I’ve been giving the newest version of the Google Toolbar a spin and it has some nifty new features that I like.

Having used the Google Toolbar from the time it was introduced, I’ve come to rely heavily on it for quick internet searching but the unexpected bonus that has come with using it turns out to be impressing lawyers and staff! Often they’ll ask me some really simple question (though they don’t know it’s simple) and they’ll watch over my shoulder while I find their answer. Being able to quickly find their answers using the Google Toolbar has given . . . [more]

The new BIALL Handbook of Legal Information Management I blogged about recently was just placed in my hands today, thanks to the speedy work of Nick Pengelley. It’s not likely to benefit any Slawyer much — far too basic — and seems directed for the mostpart at information professionals (“IPs” I learn) who have recently turned to law.

But I did find two essays interesting, as a legal academic (“LA”?) who has recently turned to information management: “Knowledge Management” by Sue Doe, and “The Role of Taxonomies in Legal Knowledge Management Systems” by Christine Miskin. The KM piece shunned any . . . [more]

The Phase 2 Report from the Commission of Inquiry into the Sponsorship Program and Advertising Activities has just been released. This report, entitled Restoring Accountability, comes in four volumes: . . . [more]