Legal Research

Ballad in Plain E is going into hibernation

Posted on May 13, 2009
I guess I knew this day would come, but surprisingly, I’m not sad about it. With lots of exciting but time-consuming things happening in my life lately, and a moderately successful new group blogging endeavour underway, I’m just not committed to this blog the way I used to be…and I’m okay with that...

The value of law library staff: the position, or the person?

Posted on March 26, 2009
Karen over at Library Technician Dialog has just written a great post entitled “A Value Proposition“.  In it she explains something we’ve been thinking a talking about lately: why Winnipeg law firms don’t employ as many library staff as similarly-sized firms in other cities do...

Ada Lovelace Day 2009: Marg Anderson and Darlene Taylor

Posted on March 24, 2009
I’ve been thinking all day about who I might write about for Ada Lovelace Day, the day that celebrates women and technology. I realised that it would only be fitting to write about two women who taught me during my two years doing the Library & Information Technology Program at SAIT...

Working with Vendors

Posted on February 05, 2009

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Office-Office vs. Home-Office (or, a Tale of Two Jobs)

Posted on January 23, 2009
I read with interest Brenda’ latest post at Library Technician Dialog: “Working at Home“. It prompted me to try to verbalise my thoughts on this topic. Since I moved to Winnipeg I’ve been working two jobs: in the morning, I work at a law firm, and in the afternoon, I telecommute from home to my [...

Cool stuff from Gmail Labs

Posted on January 15, 2009
I love Gmail. Really, really love it. I can’t believe there are still people using Hotmail or Yahoo when Gmail is available! So I was excited to see this CNET article about a nifty new tool from Gmail Labs: “Send & Archive Combo Button Economizes Gmail” (hat tip: Steven Cohen)...

My 2008 CLawBies Nominations

Posted on December 12, 2008
The 2008 edition of the Canadian Law Blog Awards (CLawBies) is off to a great start - check out the growing list of blogged nominations at Steve Matthews’ Vancouver Law Librarian Blog. I approach the nominations from the point of view of a law firm library technician...

Non-lawyer legal bloggers

Posted on December 09, 2008
I really enjoyed Laurie Mapp’s latest post over at Halo Secretarial Services. In it, Laurie explains why non-lawyers have an important place in the legal blogosphere: “Non lawyers are important and valuable assets, whether to brick and mortar law firms or virtual practices...

Am I the proverbial 20-something?

Posted on December 01, 2008
It’s a weird feeling to see my generation being described over and over again in the current business and library literature. Net Generation, Gen Y, Millennials, Echo Boom…there are a million names and the birth-year range is up for debate, but generally accepted to be anyone born about 1980 or after...

New BC Courthouse Library catalogue

Posted on November 14, 2008
One of the things I miss most about working in BC is the fantastic BC Courthouse Library system. This week’s news is just one more reason for that. They’ve now got a new name (Courthouse Libraries BC), URL (http://www.courthouselibrary.ca), look, and logo, and along with that, a fresh new interface for their library catalogue...

Words & Phrases compared

Posted on November 05, 2008
Over at Slaw, Gary Rodrigues has a good post comparing the words & phrases offerings of Westlaw and Quicklaw.  Rodrigues notes: “Both services are unique in what they offer. Until one service seeks to match the other in content, both may be needed...

Keeping Found Things Found

Posted on October 22, 2008
At SLA this past June, I attended a session on personal information management (PIM) and made a little note of it here at my blog. Over at Slaw, Joel Alleyne has just posted his review of William Jones’ book, “Keeping Found Things Found“, which was the basis of the PIM session at SLA...

Library as [a fun] place

Posted on October 09, 2008
Mark at the AALL Spectrum Blog wonders whether law libraries are holding fun events in the library, and whether anyone has studied (and presumably reported on) that. My answer to the first question is an emphatic “yes!” At my previous job in a firm library, we tried to hold several fun events every year...

Bloglines just isn?t cutting it anymore.

Posted on October 09, 2008
Steve posted to law.librarians about maybe ditching Bloglines. I’m with him on that. I can’t get Manitoba “new cases” feeds from CanLII, and my Slaw feed hasn’t worked in weeks. So what’ll it be? Google Reader? Anyone got suggestions?

Innis Christie on Sarah Palin, etc.

Posted on September 29, 2008
It’s always neat to learn about the personalities behind the books we spend half our lives filing updates into, shelving, and reshelving. I was fascinated by this Lancaster House interview with Innis Christie, who is an original author of Employment Law in Canada, and the winner of the 2008 U of T Bora Laskin Award...

Who wouldn?t want this job?

Posted on September 19, 2008
Check out the language of this job ad! Amazing to see a non-library (actually, any organization, for that matter) advertise using our language. OK, maybe there are a few too many cliches, but overall, the description paints a very clear picture of the right candidate...

?The explanation that fully answers the question?: worth pushing for

Posted on September 17, 2008
Mega props to Karen at Library Technician Dialog. Her persistence paid off big-time for all of us in Manitoba who deal with this particular legal information vendor. See ya, arbitrarily-added PST!

Trendy home libraries?ugh.

Posted on September 16, 2008
Via Library Link of the Day… Most of the people in this article sound like complete idiots. (Or at least their clients sound like idiots.) I’ll be the first to acknowledge that books can be a lovely visual aspect of a room, but come on. Sure, I haven’t read every book that’s stored in my bookcases, [...

WestlaweCarswell?s Words & Phrases

Posted on September 16, 2008
I note from this month’s WestlaweCarswell eBulletin that Words & Phrases has finally been rolled out. According to the bulletin: Words & Phrases is now available on LawSource!   Words & Phrases provides you with fresh strategies for finding the law online...

Don?t know much about Rob Hyndman?

Posted on September 07, 2008
…but I like how he thinks. On the bright side: Election Party on Oct 14th!

Good article on law firm SEO

Posted on September 03, 2008
Legal web guru (and, okay, my boss) Steve Matthews just published a really good article on law firm SEO over at Slaw. Even if you’re not particularly interested in SEO, this is a great introduction to the concepts of natural/organic vs. paid search...

Ubiquity is awesome!

Posted on August 28, 2008
After reading about Ubiquity in Simon Fodden’s Slaw post yesterday morning, and then watching Aza Raskin’s video, I *had* to download Firefox 3 so that I could try out it out. (Even though some of my favourite add-ons aren’t available in 3...

?Insulting spam messages?really vitriolic ones!?

Posted on August 15, 2008
Dinosaur Comics over at Quantz.com has been really good lately. This one struck a chord, though, because I noticed the same thing a little while ago. Now that we’re completely desensitized to the usual ultra-explicit subject lines in spam, spammers are getting personal...

SLA Legal Division Quarterly:Post-Conference Issue

Posted on August 14, 2008
SLA Legal Division just released summer issue of Legal Division Quarterly, which contains a bunch of session summaries, including a detailed synopsis of “If I Knew Then What I Know Now: Tales from the Dark Side”, written by Tracy Leming. (At the conference, I caught only the tail-end of it...

LTAIG: gone (for now), but never forgotten

Posted on August 12, 2008
Some sad news: as of this month, LTAIG (the Library Technicians and Assistants Interest Group under the auspices of the BC Library Association) is no longer an active interest group. I was a brand-new library tech when I moved to Vancouver in April 2003, and I knew I wanted to get involved in the library [...

The long tail of scientific research

Posted on August 11, 2008
Via Library Link of the Day, there’s a really interesting article in the July 17th edition of The Economist entitled “Great minds think (too much) alike“. The article describes research that shows how digital access to scientific journals doesn’t necessarily encourage use of long tail information...

My big Manitoba adventure & farewell to Vancouver

Posted on July 28, 2008
Yes, it’s true. And no, I’m not crazy. I’ve moved to Winnipeg! After five fantastic years with Alexander Holburn, I decided that I was up for a new challenge. Winnipeg has always been near and dear to me, so I took the plunge and moved out here...

Quickscribe vs QP LegalEze

Posted on June 26, 2008
At a time when everyone is debating this issue (literally — I was just talking about it with some colleagues at lunch today!), I was thrilled to see this Cosby Group white paper that compares Quickscribe Online to QP LegalEze for legislative research...

Blawg of the Day!

Posted on June 24, 2008
Sweet! This blog was Inter Alia’s Blawg of the Day yesterday!

SLA 2008 - To Teach So They Can Learn (Wednesday, June 18)

Posted on June 21, 2008
This was one of the best sessions I attended. Dr. Ilda Carreiro King is an educational and development psychologist who specialises in helping teachers learn how to teach more successfully. In this session, she focused on learning styles of adults versus children...

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