Canadian law firm librarians have an increasing challenge finding historical stock trading prices. This is the story thus far:

For many years we enjoyed the proprietary system from The Globe and Mail called “InfoGlobe” which primarily delivered news content but also had an archaic, difficult system that allowed for pulling up historical stock prices. Once we had become “dragon masters” after many hours of training and practice, we could quickly pull up any range of dates, any configuration of data (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly) for any public company, existing, predecessor or deceased.

At the time we grumbled at the difficulty . . . [more]

The Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) has just released two recent reports of possible interest to Internet researchers. The reports are:

A Brave New World? Access Copyright in its Own Words on Issues Affecting Research Libraries (December 2, 2005. Prepared by Davina M. DesRoches. PDF, 9 pages). Examines the positions taken by Access Copyright on copyright reform as it affects research libraries.

A Compilation of Views on Aspects of Copyright Reform, as Submitted in Response to the Consultation Paper on Digital Copyright Issues (December 2, 2005. Prepared by Davina M. DesRoches. PDF, 65 pages). A useful summary of the

I see there is a recent 304 paragraph decision in B.C. – Newman et al v. Halstead et al, 2006 BCSC 65 – in which the court awarded damages totalling $681,000 against an individual defendant (who did not appear at the trial, hence there was no defence per se) for her liability in making defamatory statements on her website, chat rooms and email about various teachers in which she made allegations of misconduct and allegations that the School Board mishandled or covered up this activity.

Be careful what you say on the Internet! Despite its often ephemeral nature, publication . . . [more]

Well, Ted Tjaden was only a few days off when he pointed us to an excellent 2005 LLRX article on mining the deep web by Marcus P. Zillman. Zillman’s article has now been updated for 2006! See Deep Web Research 2006. . . . [more]

Hi all. Well for a first post I pick a doozy. What is our work worth? I am writing for both a selfish and an unselfish reason. First, I am trying to gain a salary range for research lawyers as a distinct group, which I have not come across in the generalist publications that compare, for example, litigation associates’ salaries. I do have an article giving the going rate for free-lance legal researchers though ($125 – $150 an hour). Second, I think this is a self-worth exercise, as I suspect there is out there a ‘research lawyer discount’, that is, . . . [more]

Just about as old as Slaw, which is to say a toddler, the IT.Can Blog is the current info provider for the Canadian IT Law Association, and presumbably something you’ll want to read if IT law is your thing. The blog seems to provide mostly summaries of recent interesting cases and the occasional bit about legislation. There’s room for comments as well.

Cool that it’s disponible in both langues officielles. Wish we could faire ça in Slaw. . . . [more]

Congratulations to our own Connie Crosby: she’s now a regular columnist on Sabrina Pacifici’s redoubtable LLRX.com, dubbed by LawTechnologyNews one of the 10 best sites of the decade. She’ll be writing on The Tao of Law Librarianship and is already into her second column, “Do-It-Yourself Professional Development“. How can we have missed the first? Stay tuned for the second installment of DIY PD because she’s going to interview another Slawyer, occasional contributor Lousie Tsang.

Tao Te Ching: “Through knowledge, intellectual thought and words, the manifestations of the Tao are known…“ . . . [more]

Overlooked Ron Friedmann’s thoughtful article, for American Lawyer Media, on whether blawgs are worth the investmentFor which also see a more generic analysis, until Jordan Furlong’s Canadian Bar Practice Pro links drove me to it.

As usual for Ron, well written and thoughtful. And it gives us the answer to the question, why are we doing this? . . . [more]

I happened by the Jurist Canada site today. It seems to be running on automatic pilot — kicking out news as the result of a fixed set of search terms — and falling weirdly out of date otherwise. I mean, you’ve got to love the first thing your eye falls on (assuming it goes to the upper right corner of a window, as mine usually does, as if on a print page), a snapshot of which you see to the right. Apparently Osgoode is looking for a new dean! Patrick Monahan will be interested in the position, no doubt, given . . . [more]

While SONY got our attention most recently, because of their Digital Rights Management approaches and the resulting backlash, let us look at them in a more positive light. This time, its e-book the sequel. Sony demonstrated their latest attempt at the e-book at the recent International CES trade show for the electronic gadget industry in Las Vegas.

Rumors are floating all over the web. After scouring through several web sites, I have put together this probable list of features: This new device is reportedly to be priced in the range of an iPod – $300-500 USD. It will use E . . . [more]

Genie Tyburski at The Virtual Chase (an excellent site, by the way) reports on a January 13, 2006 article in Nature by Michael Hopkin entitled “Web Users Judge Sites in the Blink of an Eye“. The article reports on a study from Carleton University that flashed websites in front of volunteers who were asked to then rank the sites based on visual appeal. The study found that volunteers were able to make impressions about the websites in 50 milliseconds!

On her site, Genie makes a good point that information professionals need to be aware that many users may . . . [more]

Anyone passing Chancery Lane might wish to pop in to the Law Society to see an exhibition that must have had the legal researchers there busy.

According to a BBC article this is one of those extraordinary exhibitions that make the public wonder whether we’ve collectively taken leave of our senses or inhabit a netherworld of time warped irrelevancy.

They report:

* It is still illegal for anyone to wear armour to Parliament, (Royal Prerogative 1279)
* Hanging washing in the street, beating a carpet and flying a kite are set out in the Town Police Clauses Act, 1847, . . . [more]