Legal Research

KM tips for introvets

Posted on July 27, 2009
Neil Richards of the Knowledge Thoughts Blog has written an interesting piece entitled "Channel your inner George Costanza; KM tips for Introverts" In the post Neil looks at how introversion can effect the work of Library/Information Managers by influencing the networking they do and subsequently the number of people/groups that they're exposed to...

Managing Social Media

Posted on July 25, 2009
Mashable have written an excellent post on "How to manage social media goals and expectations" the post writes about something I have a real problem with. Indivdiuals desire to have a billion followers! From the post:"People have been setting some strange, unrealistic, and possibly misguided expectations recently in social media...

CLSIG events

Posted on July 24, 2009
I haven't been on the CILIP website for a while, essentially because I find it difficult to navigate but had reason to today when Hanna Lewin reminded me that the Commercial Legal and Scientific Group (CLSIG) are running a Web 2.0 event in the autumn...

Are you obsolete or mission critical?

Posted on July 22, 2009
Mary Abraham from the Above and Beyond KM blog has written a very timely post called "Are you obsolete or mission critical" in which Mary points reader to an article from rickmans posterous blog called "Should knowledge managers look for a new job?"As Mary indicates in her blog post "The message that comes through is that in an Enterprise 2...

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33 ways to use LinkedIn for business

Posted on July 19, 2009
I love this article from the Web Worker Daily which lists 33 ways in which you can use LinkedIn for business, that is as more then just a place to "connect with people" not that this isn't valuable. Some of the suggestions are quite obvious, like filling out your profile completely but others are quite useful for anyone who is just starting to use LinkedIn or is a regular user...

Competitve intelligence in a Web 2.0 world

Posted on July 17, 2009
Greg Lambert over at the 3 Geeks and a Law Blog has written an interesting post on "Competitive intelligence in a Web 2.0 world" the post looks at some of the tools and techniques you can use to find people on Twitter.In the post Greg uses the example of trying to find Lawyers who work in particular law firms, but there is absolutely no reason why Greg's techniques cant be applied more widely...

JPMorgan Chase & Clife Woods 10K 2009

Posted on July 16, 2009
Two runs to report about here. The first the JPMorgan Chase Challenge is an annual race that I have taken part in for the last four years. I'm pleased to say that during that time period my times have always come down and this year was no exception.My time (25:19) was a whole minute faster then last year was helped by very favourable conditions last week...

Twitter for Libraries

Posted on July 08, 2009
I've seen and used a lot of useful Twitter resources recently so I thought it was only fair that I share them with you. The first is Twitter for Libraries a post from the What I learned today blog.Then there is Twitter search in plain English, which is another great video from the team at Commoncraft...

Volunteering opportunities...

Posted on July 01, 2009
Are you a Law Librarian...who is a member of the British & Irish Association of Law Librarians (BIALL)...and would like to become involved with the work of BIALL...then I'd love to hear from you!BIALL relies on its members to volunteer for committees that work on projects like the BIALL Website, The Conference, BIALL Salary Surveys and much much more...

When Librarianship might not be a fit!

Posted on June 25, 2009
When you might think could Librarianship possibly not be a fit? well in the current climate it might be right now. So what if anything could Librarians be doing to keep their options open. Well this article from the FUMSI Website looks at what we should be doing and how "for the health of our careers, it's important to take time on a regular basis to examine whether our current jobs - and our current career paths - are still the right fit, and whether investigating new possibilities might help us move forward"The article goes on to look at when Librarianship might not be a fit, how you could transfer your skills to a new role and pinpointing your new career path.

Should We Be More Social?

Posted on June 20, 2009
For anyone who wasn't at the BIALL Conference, the slides from my presenation are available below. The session look at how Social Media tools can be used by Law Librarians to become more productive...that's right more productive! Enjoy the slides...Should We Be More SocialView more OpenOffice presentations from James Mullan.

Wildy-BIALL Law Librarian of the year 2009

Posted on June 20, 2009
If you weren't already aware, last night BIALL presented me with the Wildy-BIALL Law Librarian of the year 2009 award. I was honoured to receive this award, especially in the company of so many of my peers. At the time because I had absolutely no idea I was the recipient of this award I hadn't prepared an acceptance speech, so my speech when called upon was quite short and I didn't thank the many people that have encouraged me to become involved with BIALL and to develop my technical skills...

BIALL Conference 2009

Posted on June 15, 2009
I hate to bang on about the BIALL Conference, both here and on the BIALL Blog but I'm uber excited about the Conference. Not only am I talking about one of my favourite subjects aka Social Media but the new BIALL website will be launched and I'll be catching up with a couple of friends who I haven't seen in more than 10 years...

Harvel 5 2009

Posted on June 07, 2009
Yesterday I ran the Harvel5, a 5 mile race round the village of Harvel in Kent. I hadn't run this race before so I wasn't sure to expect especially as the running club organising the race has the logo "A drinking club with a running problem"The race also started at the very strange time of 2pm on a Saturday, if it had been really hot then I'm not sure I would have run as fast as I did...

Navigating the Enterprise 2.0 Highway

Posted on June 02, 2009
LLRX.com have published an interesting article on how US Law Firm Hicks Morley implemented Thoughtfarmer as a replacement to their existing intranet."A review was recently conducted that included an in-depth analysis of the site and user statistics as well as a feedback survey to determine the frequency of use, value of content, usability of the interface and ease of information retrieval...

Making connections

Posted on June 01, 2009
David Lee King has written an excellent post on how he deals with the numerous requests he receives to follow people on Twitter, befriend people on Facebook etc etc. From his post "Who to friend? Who to ignore? Who to respond to? And when?" It can be quite tricky deciding who to friend/befriend and who to ignore especially as the lines between professional and personal become more and more blurred...

Has the Age of the Legal Knowledgebase Finally Arrived?

Posted on May 29, 2009
An interesting post here from the Technologist the "Findlaw Technology Blog" in which the author argues that "...Web 2.0 technologies can increase the adoption of knowledge management systems, and thus the benefit to law firms, by integrating the systems with attorneys' everyday experiences"Many law firms have implemented Knowledge Management systems, which have ultimately failed either through lack of use or because the main users are those individuals who are responsible for Knowledge Management systems! So what does Web 2...

Thinking about a career in Legal Information?

Posted on May 28, 2009
Recently I had the great pleasure to work on a project with Emily Allbon of Lawbore and City University fame. Emily and I did a session ages ago for the CILIP Career Development Group for students who were looking at librarianship as a career.So we teamed up to produce a "slideshow" which gives people a view of the work that goes on in academic and law firm Libraries...

Second wave adapaters - are you ready!?

Posted on May 28, 2009
Three posts here from of Headshift on Enterprise 2.0 and barriers to the adoption of Enterprise 2.0. The posts are:Overview of barriers to introducing Enterprise 2.0 and user adoptionScrutinizing barriers to user adoptionThoughts on how to attract second-wave adopters

Is RSS Dead?

Posted on May 26, 2009
Lee Bryant from Headshift has written a very interesting post about a subject very close to my and many other Law Librarians hearts - RSS. In the post Lee describes how many people within the Social Media/Web 2.0 industry have written RSS off citing Twitter as a replacement...

I want my Web 2.0 and I want it now...

Posted on May 22, 2009
This, albeit with my small addition at the end is the title of an article in the April 2009 edition of the AALL Spectrum. The article looks in detail at the CS-SIS Web 2.0 Challenge which took place last year.I wonder whether BIALL might think about doing something similar in the UK?

50 Best Blogs for Law Librarians

Posted on May 21, 2009
I'm absolutely delighted to have been included in the Online University Lowdown list of the 50 Best Blogs for Law Librarians. There are some fantastic blog listed here, which I would recommend people subscribe to if they don't already, they include:Strategic Librarian law...

Making the case

Posted on May 20, 2009
This months edition of Inside Knowledge carries an interesting article* on the business case for and against the use of Social Software within an Enterprise. The article is an excerpt from the CMS Watch Enterprise Social Software & Collaboration Report and is a brief look at the "Hard" and "Soft Benefits" of using Social Software...

How To Keep Up Without Having To Stay Up? Web 2.0 For The Solo Librarian

Posted on May 18, 2009
Last Tuesday I spoke to the BIALL Solos Group on the subject of surprise surprise Web 2.0 or rather Social Media. The webinar was predominatly about how Solo Librarians could use Social Media tools to keep up to date with developments in the Legal Sector...

Whistable 10k and Larkfield 10k

Posted on May 17, 2009
Two race reports here for the price of one! The first the Whistable 10k was my first race of the *new* running season so I didn't have great expectations in terms of my time. I was therefore pleasantly surprised when I finished with a time of 46:21, which placed me 145th out of 572 runners...

How to..ReTweet

Posted on May 11, 2009
This is a great post I was made aware of recently which looks at how to ReTweet and be ReTweeted. To ReTweet is to basically forward a Twitter post that you have seen to your followers, thereby spreading information around the Twitterverse.But how do you actually ReTweet a Tweet and perhaps more importantly create content on Twitter that is going to be ReTweeted? The post make several suggestions as follows:Keep your ReTweet shortRead what you're sharingKnow your audience/followersTo get your Tweets ReTweeted:Write good contentInclude linksRemember your character countSome useful suggestions here and a post that is well worth reading.

The 4P's of Social Media

Posted on May 08, 2009
I've read a lot of blog posts recently describing the 4P's of Social Media that is, Public, Private, Personal and Political. One of the issues I have is the blurry divide between what you do on Social Media sites that is personal and what is professional and more importantly how you manage these two aspects of your life...

Socialising in the workplace

Posted on May 06, 2009
A really interesting article here from Communicate Magazine which reports on the use of Twitter, Yammer and other Microblogging tools within organisations. Notably at the BBC and CAPGemini, which are two of the organisations whose use of Social Media tools is discussed.

Building blogs of success

Posted on May 04, 2009
My latest article called "Building blogs of success" (I couldn't think of a better title unfortunately) has just been published in Managing Partner Magazine. Although the article is available online you will need to be subscriber of Managing Partner Magazine to be able to read it...

CILIP Open Session on Web 2.0

Posted on May 01, 2009
Unless you've had your head buried in the sand for the last few days, you cant help but have noticed that the CILIP Open Session on Web 2.0 took place. This was an open session on how CILIP should be using Web2 technologies to engage with both members and non-members in the LIS community...

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