Pinsent-Masons have a wonderful e-letter called Out-law which focuses on the law of technology. Today’s issue has a piece called Search Engine Wars by Andy Atkins-Kruger, which is a provocative read.

There may only be room for one winner in the battle of the titans, which will soon break out in the search market. MSN and Google, antler to antler, have been eyeing each other up for the last year – each trying to exploit their own strengths and overcome their weaknesses as they face a competition in which the stakes are all too high.

Out-Law claims that this . . . [more]

For those of you who access PubMed or NLM Gateway for medical literature, here is a useful article from the New England Journal of Medicine on researching: “Searching for the Right Search – Reaching the Medical Literature”: http://content.nejm.org/current.shtml. Dr. Steinbrook describes how web-based search engines are transforming our use of medical literature, and discusses the various search engines available, eg. PubMed, Google Scholar, and Yahoo. . . . [more]

Those were the terms that Harry Arthurs used a quarter of a century ago in the SSHRC Study into Law and LearningReport of the Consultative Group on Research and Education in Law, mandated by Canada’s Social Science and Humanities Research Council, Law and Learning / Le droit et le savoir.

And a comment at the end of a recent Tribune piece on Outsourcing legal research leads me to ask who in fact does know more.

The comment is made by David Goodman, a practising lawyer who says he doesn’t feel threatened by Dov Siedman’s cadre of moonlighting professors who’ll . . . [more]

From the ABA’s question of the week: QUESTION OF THE WEEK
PICKING YOUR BRAIN: What would you be willing to contribute to Wikipedia’s Wikilaw project?
There’s a new legal resource on the horizon, and it’s going to be written by you—or anyone else who has knowledge of the law and time to put it into words. It’s called WikilawSee the interesting debate on Larry Lessig’s blog about whether this is a doomed undertaking, and it’s being spawned from Wikipedia, the Internet-based encyclopedia that allows anyone to contribute and/or edit entries. The goal of Wikilaw—as stated on its home . . . [more]

There was a rumour going around recently that the special Canada Post rate for mailing library books which some institutions enjoy would soon be discontinued. TALL President Wendy Reynolds has contacted the Canadian Library Association about it. She has confirmed this was just a rumour, that the book rate is continuing.

Moreover, Canada Post, the Canadian Library Association and l’Association pour la science et les techniques de la documentation (ASTED) launched a new tool for shipping library books with the Library Book Rate in late November 2005. Press release.

If you have any questions regarding the Library Book Rate . . . [more]

1. Bio-Optic Organized Knowledge device
2. Search Engine Watch
3. Search Engine Watch: ratings
4. Search Engine Watch: resources
5. Search Engine Watch: forums
6. InterPARES Project
7. InterPARES Project Two
8. Luciana Duranti
9. UBC: School of Library, Archival and Information Studies
10. InterPARES Project Two: Description Cross-Domain Group
11. Globetechnology: European tech giants craft search engine
12. Guidelines for the Discovery of Electronic Documents in Ontario [pdf]
13. Ontario Bar Association: E-Discovery Resources Page
14. PracticePRO Practice Aids: e-discovery reading list
15. llrx.com
16. llrx.com: Marcus P. Zillman, “Deep Web Research 2005″
17. Knowledge Jolt with Jack: KM blog collections
18. Blogdigger: Jack Vinson’s Knowledge Management Group Page
19. Blogdigger Groups
20. Blogdigger Groups: opml export
21. Blogdigger Groups:

. . . [more]

Bio-Optic Organized Knowledge device . . . [more]

Slaw’ers often make posts regarding a new search engine or tool available on the web; for a wider angle view of this topic Search Engine Watch is a site dedicated to new developments in this area.

This site includes: Ratings of various engines and services, a Resource Page, which includes reviews, tutorials etc., a daily and/or monthly newsletter that one can subscribe to, a blog and it is all available via RSS if one so desires. . . . [more]

Thanks to a comment by Michael Lines on my electronic discovery piece, I've discovered the InterPARES Project at the University of British Columbia: The International Research on Permanent Authentic Records in Electronic Systems (InterPARES) aims at developing the theoretical and methodological knowledge essential to the long-term preservation of authentic records created and/or maintained in digital form. This knowledge should provide the basis from which to formulate model policies, strategies and standards capable of ensuring the longevity of such material and the ability of its users to trust its authenticity.

In a recent post (see Electronic Discovery) I raised the often troublesome relationship between lawyers and IT folk in law firms. One of my jobs at Osgoode Hall Law School over the past few years has been to mediate between the IT people and the faculty, and so I know a little about this vexed meeting of minds, but I’d imagined that somehow things would be better worked out in the professional context of practice than in the sometimes quirky academic world. Seems I may have been wrong.

Do your IT people talk to your lawyers? Do the lawyers . . . [more]

Quaero is billed as Europe’s answer to Google, but it has a lot to live up to….

So far Quaero is just a scattering of top tech minds in labs across France and Germany, working on what they hope will be the world’s most advanced multimedia search engine.

Quaero epitomizes European ambitions — especially for French President Jacques Chirac — of creating alternatives to U.S. technological prowess. But facing off against super-rich, super-talented U.S. companies may prove daunting for the cumbersome consortium of European companies and public agencies hatching Quaero.
Globetechnology: European tech giants craft search engine

Yep. That and . . . [more]

Not being a practicing lawyer, I’ve required more than a moment to clue into the depth and difficulty of the problems facing law firms and their clients as a result of all of the current forms of electronic data, ranging from emails to material on web sites, or blogs for that matter.

As I’m sure the rest of Slaw knows, these forms are more evanescent than good old paper, and are more subject to easy… emendation, shall we say, or to unintended publication. These foibles can prove troublesome within lawsuits, for example, when documents must be produced or otherwise made . . . [more]