I saw an unrelated reference today to something that reminded me of the research by Professor Carol Kuhlthau on research anxiety and the various stages that the typical student or researcher needs to pass through when conducting research. Many students are not aware of the phases they must pass through as part of the research process, so I sometimes find it useful to discuss these stages of research anxiety. . . . [more]

Like most of you, I’m sure, I’ve known for some time about Google’s customizable “home page.” When I first learned about it I set up some items giving me BBC news and the New York Times, some bookmarks for a couple of sites I like, the weather for places I’d rather be… And I really never went back.

Only today (blush) did it dawn on me — and then only because a friend showed me something nearby — that this thing is, or could be, an RSS news aggregator that works out better than Google Reader, certainly for those . . . [more]

The CBC reports on a Canadian Internet Project study that suggests Canadians are heavy users of the Internet with 56 per cent of all Canadians are online at least seven hours a week, with the average Canadian user online 13.5 hours each week. . . . [more]

Further to Neil Campbell’s post of last week about the Open Content Alliance project to digitize libraries…

Brewster Kahle has produced an e-book called The Open Library to describe the Alliance’s process and to hash over some of the problems about copyright and reading on line. Kahle, through his foundation, is a main benefactor of the Internet Archive, and has long championed making out-of-copyright works available to everyone (especially poor children) through digitization and print-on-demand.

Now that the main Canadian universities are part of the Open Content Alliance, it’ll be interesting to see whether any of our law libraries . . . [more]

Last week the Attorney General of Ontario introduced the Access to Justice Act, Bill 14. Schedule F to that Act is a new statute, the Legislation Act. Part IV (sections 28 – 35) of the Legislation Act is called Proof of Legislation. It makes the text of statutes and regulations on the e-Laws website an “official copy” of the law (s. 29(1)(b)) and an official copy is presumed to be an accurate statement of the law, unless the contrary is proved (s. 32).

There are rules about the period during which this accuracy is presumed.

33. Unless the contrary is

The Canadian Bar Association‘s Oct/Nov 2005 edition of the “National” has a piece I was involved with entitled “Legal Research Roundtable.” There is nothing likely too earth-shattering in the piece for most experienced legal researchers. What was fun about the experience was the opportunity to speak with the three other participants (Gregory Pun, Peter Nagy and Cynthia Simpson) and Melanie Raymond (from the CBA) to see what other colleagues are up to.

It never surprises me but sometimes surprises others the extent to which legal research continues to involve print-based resources (with the fear that those who rely solely . . . [more]

We are increasingly seeing or hearing about law firms and lawyers using podcasting, a technology I have yet to explore. The Canadian Bar Association has a piece entitled “Podcasting: Coming to a Law Firm Near You” that may be of interest to some readers. . . . [more]

Two items:

The Canadian Judicial Council has issued a model policy on court records. It provides for public access to most court information, if you actually visit the courthouse, but greatly limits electronic remote access.

The policy is at http://www.cjc-ccm.gc.ca

Also, the Federation of Law Socities will be meeting this weeking, November the 5th in Ottawa for a one-day workshop on Dissemination of Legal Information in Canada. This is a closed meeting for the Federation, but I understand they will be addressing three topics: major challenges and issues in the next 5 to 10 years; the potential for national initiatives; . . . [more]

From the Press Release:

The Cultural Human Resources Council (CHRC), a not-for-profit national Sector Council, has hired the 8Rs Research Team (University of Alberta) to undertake a Training Gaps Analysis for professional librarians and library technicians. The project is overseen by CHRC’s Library Steering Committee which includes representatives of the Association pour l’avancement des sciences et des techniques de la documentation (ASTED), the Canadian Association of Research Libraries, the Canadian Library Association, the Canadian Urban Library Council, Library technicians education programs, and Masters level library schools.

The 8Rs Research Team has conducted in-depth research on libraries as workplaces for the

I was musing on the subway this morning about our computer lab — actually we have two of them. They take up a lot of space and of course are resource-intensive, needing continual upgrades in hardware and software. Does anyone still think we will need them in say, five years time?

Most of our students now have laptops. They’re more ubiquitous than ever and getting smaller, lighter and with longer battery life. And of course our students are more IT-literate than ever before — and that will only increase. Our libraries are wireless. Printing is wireless. In the future I . . . [more]

Reading about Justice Samuel Alito yesterday, the Post and the Times both linked to the Wikipedia biography of the nominee. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_A._Alito,_Jr.

It seems to be written in real time, with links to the White House statement, and newspaper commentaries, as well as good links back to his judgments and pre-judicial career.
What was really impressive was how fast this was current and running, a better site than any of the conventional papers and a tribute to web-based collaboration. . . . [more]

I stumbled on an odd site that values Blogs – and who knows what the methodology is but it values slaw at $4,084.20

http://blogshares.com/blogs.php?blog=https://www.slaw.ca%2F

Funny that it doesn’t know what industry we’re in.

At the base of the page is its valuation of our links out.

Top 100 Incoming Links
This is a list of the most valuable incoming links at the time OTHER blogs are indexed. It is indicative of FUTURE value not CURRENT value.

Xanada (B$1,086.76)
Vancouver Law Librarian Blog (B$939.06)
excited utterances (B$325.98)
CS-SIS Blawgs Committee (B$296.85)
Stark County Law Library Blawg (B$185.51)
Connie Crosby (B$124.28)
Out