I haven’t been posting to SLAW lately, due to end of term burn out, and travelling on university business. In my latest trip, I took with me the most recent issue of “The Walrus” for December/January. Now that Saturday Night has fizzled out, it has become my Canadian magazine of choice. So I’m not hesitant to plug it. In addition to some great articles on hydrogen fuel in Iceland, Japanese tea ceremonie in Halifax, etc., there was an article by Jeremy Keehn, “An open-source history of open source” – its a great one page graphic. Its worth checking out.

While . . . [more]

Take a look at PreviewSeek, a new search engine from the U.K. that claims to be better than Google and explains why.

It’s sleek and fast, I’ll say that for it. And it’s apparently a meta-search engine, querying the usual suspects (one suspects — though they don’t say) and then integrating the results. It also clusters its findings in a menu to the left of the main page, which can be helpful.

Funny how resistant one is to letting go of Google.

[via inter-alia] . . . [more]

Is anyone doing anything interesting with regard to profiling their users? Do you have an intake survey when they start at your firm (or law school)? Has anyone experimented with building profiles via online surveys?

I’ve been thinking lately that it would be a great resource (on a number of levels) if we could build detailed profiles of each of our lawyers – either by a paper or electronic questionnaire, or by extending the information we collect in the personal profiles area on our Intranet.

Also related, are you’re tracking Library reference questions in a unique way? or linking reference . . . [more]

Slaw readers know that Osgoode Hall Law School is currently recruiting new librarians (three positions advertised, more later next year). When we do have some new full-time staff on board one of the things I’d like to look seriously at is setting up exchanges with law firm librarians. The idea would be to promote knowledge and understanding of the way in which our respective users undertake research. I think it would be especially useful for academic librarians to have insight into the way in which lawyers use firm libraries, and the kind of information they seek – useful in that . . . [more]

In its bid to compete in a Web 2.0 world, Yahoo! continues its spending spree. Over the weekend they purchased de.licio.us according to this del.icio.us blog post. Yahoo! recently also acquired my favourite photo host flickr. Thanks to Michael Casey for this tip from his blog LibraryCrunch.

[Is it my imagination, or has del.icio.us suddenly crashed? I can’t seem to get access right now. Probably from all of us gossip mongers trying to get onto the site!] . . . [more]

What to do with core legal texts? One English charity has a good idea

Legal Profession and Publishing Industry Launch International Law Book Facility

The International Law Book Facility, a unique charitable and publishing industry initiative, has been launched by the Rt. Hon. Lord Justice John Thomas, Judge of the Court of Appeal and ILBF Trustee.

With the support of Book Aid International, this important new initiative has a simple goal: to provide printed core legal texts to legal professional bodies, pro bono groups and law schools involved in access to justice in common law jurisdictions of Africa, Asia and . . . [more]

Legal Blogs that is.
Google Directory ranks websites in particular topics by the number of hits they receive. Google Directory – Society Law Legal Information Weblogs
Our category may be rather small, but among the top twenty legal blogs, we made the top twenty – just, we came in at 19.
But we are the only non-American site in the top twenty.
That and ten cents of hope will keep us on the Infobahn . . . [more]

Thanks to Larry Lessig for pointing out a great report from the Brennan Center on how web-based collaboration is being challenged by the misapplication of old print approaches to copyright. See Brennan Center on Fair Use.
As the Report’s Press Release states:

Misinterpretation of ‘Fair Use’ Stifles Free Expression
Artists, Writers and Bloggers Targeted for Using Copyrighted Material
New York, NY — Today, the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law released a new report, “Will Fair Use Survive?” which documents the increasing number of artists, writers, bloggers and others who are unjustly targeted for using copyrighted or

Online Rights Canada (ORC) is a grassroots organization that promotes the public’s interest in technology and information policy. We believe that Canadians should have a voice in copyright law, access to information, freedom from censorship, and other issues that we face in the digital world.
Online Rights Canada [Via beSpacific.]

To help in the understanding of the current gun control debate following Prime Minister Paul Martin’s proposed ban of handguns in Canada, Michel-Adrien Sheppard has put together an extensive list of gun control resources , both Canadian and international, at his blog Library Boy. . . . [more]

1. VLLB: Canadian law blogs list
2. Opinions politiques
3. Le monde politique et judiciaire
4. La pub et le droit
5. Culture Libre.ca
6. C’est une Blog?
7. CaDerange
8. FP Infomart Mobile
9. Wikipedia: concept map
10. Wikipedia: topic map
11. Grokker: search for Chaoulli
12. NY Times: Snared in the Web of a Wikipedia Liar
13. Medworth.org.uk: Reliability of Wikipedia
14. Wired: Wikipedia Faces Growing Pains
15. The 1911 Edition Encyclopedia
16. Le Réseau juridique: Foire aux questions juridiques
17. Canadian Industrial Designs Database
18. University of Michigan: Government Gazettes Online
19. Carnegie Mellon: unofficial Canadiana
20. Carnegie Mellon: Stewart Clayman
21. Library and Archives Canada: Canadian Information By Subject: 34 Law
22. AdmiraltyLaw.com
23. Joe Magnet: Constitutional Law of

Could I get some Slaw help? I’ve created a list of Canadian Law Blogs over on the VLLB, and I’d like to expand it as much as possible.

If you know of anyone else, feel free to leave a comment here on this post, and I’ll add it in. Any leads will be very much appreciated. :-) . . . [more]